Johanna Olsndot drifts in and out of consciousness as she lies aboard a twin-hulled sailboat. Her captors—dog-like creatures with rat-like features and long necks—tend to her wounds and force water down her throat. As she grows more lucid, she deduces that the boat is sailing south, away from the spacecraft and far from any hope of finding Jefri.

Pretending to be delirious, she observes the creatures working with uncanny coordination, as if they were a single entity. Four of them manipulate her computerized “dataset” using only their mouths and claws. The device plays her startup message for Jefri, startling them. After the creatures accidentally trigger the booby traps that she set for her meddling brother, the dataset shifts into a language-learning mode for young children.

When she yells at them, they imitate her voice perfectly. They try to feed her with fresh-caught seafood, but when she recognizes one scarred member as the creature who killed her father, she lashes out and strikes it, dazing it and the other three in the pack. Despite her pain, Johanna feels triumph at the realization that she can hurt them.

The chapter opens with the history of Woodcarver, a city-state founded six centuries ago by a single pack who became renowned for art and revolutionary experiments in pack-mind development. Through careful self-experimentation, Woodcarver learned to shape souls by controlling breeding and training, creating a settlement famous for extending pack lifespans and enhancing intelligence.

Peregrine Wickwrackscar and Scriber Jaqueramaphan arrive at Woodcarver by boat and are greeted as heroes for stealing the alien prize from the Flenserist fanatics. Peregrine, who is still dizzy from the head injury that Johanna inflicted, notices that the city has become heavily fortified in the 50 years since his last visit. The pompous Lord Chamberlain, Vendacious, meets them and arranges medical care for both the alien and Peregrine.

In a vast council chamber, Woodcarver appears; while Peregrine remembers Woodcarver identifying as male, the pack’s composition has changed sufficiently that Woodcarver is now female. Peregrine is horrified to see that her pack has physically degraded; one member is blind, another is extremely aged, and several others have noticeable physical disabilities. A council member named Scrupilo approaches the alien to examine her more closely, and despite Peregrine’s warning, loosens the ropes on her arms. Johanna strikes him precisely on the “tympanum”—one of the organs that is used to create and hear speech. The alien makes vocalizations that Peregrine perceives as being very similar to interpack speech. The council is disturbed to realize that this single alien may possess the dexterity and intelligence of an entire pack. Scrupilo proposes the heretical theory that the aliens might be intelligent singletons. Woodcarver acknowledges the existential stakes—if each individual alien has the capabilities of a pack, their entire civilization may be doomed. Woodcarver orders Johanna moved to a lodge near her own so that she can personally perform surgery on the arrow wound and study the creature.

The next day, Woodcarver visits Peregrine and reports successful surgery on Johanna. When Peregrine asks about Woodcarver’s physical decline, she explains that 600 years of selective breeding to preserve her soul eventually failed, forcing her to choose between mental acuity and physical wholeness. She reveals that Scrupilo, Vendacious, and the notorious Flenser are all her offspring, and she laments bitterly that the aliens’ arrival came in the twilight of her life, as she yearns to learn the knowledge contained within the alien’s dataset. Peregrine comforts her, suggesting that this is the perfect moment for Woodcarver to change with the world. Feeling an increasing sexual attraction, the two packs enter his lodge together.

That afternoon, a rejuvenated Woodcarver brings the dataset to Scrupilo’s laboratory. For three hours, they experiment with the device and identify a recurring pattern; when they make errors, the dataset plays an interactive tutorial that is designed to teach them the aliens’ language.

The perspective shifts to Johanna. As she recuperates in a dark cabin with access to a garden, she observes the town below and concludes that each pack is a single, malevolent mind. One day, the pack that performed her surgery approaches, carrying her dataset and speaks to her in her native language of Samnorsk. Realizing that they have accessed the “kindermode” designed for young children, Johanna decides to cooperate, resolving to learn about these creatures and discover Jefri’s fate.

As autumn turns to winter at Flenser’s fortress on Hidden Island, the deeply conflicted Tyrathect walks the ramparts, maintaining her masquerade of being Flenser reborn. The guards fear her, but they are unaware that her original “soul” has dominated the two Flenser fragments that have been grafted onto her. She now possesses Flenser’s knowledge and brilliance but secretly retains her own values. She watches Lord Steel construct a massive fortress around the landed starship, knowing that if she cannot stop his plans, the Flenserists’ cruel authoritarian regime will spread worldwide.

From his tower, Steel debates whether to kill the Flenser fragment before more pieces of Flenser can arrive. In a flashback, he recalls his first visit to the alien ship three days after the ambush. At that time, the cargo hold was filled with coffins containing small aliens in suspended animation. He concluded that the aliens had intended a secret colonization mission, and he believes that his attack narrowly prevented an invasion.

Now, Steel tours Flenser’s laboratories and reviews his own secret experiments: packs created from stolen puppies and controlled from birth. He visits Experiment Amdiranifani—eight mathematically talented puppies who were failing until the captured alien child, Jefri Olsndot, was accidentally placed with them. The puppies bonded with Jefri and began learning his spoken language. Steel sees this development as the key to controlling both Jefri and the alien technology, which he plans to use for conquest of the world and eventually the stars.

Eight-year-old Jefri Olsndot plays with eight puppies (Amdiranifani) whom he thinks of collectively as “Puppies” and perceives as a single friend. Against the Flenser fragment’s recommendations, Steel has Amdiranifani tell Jefri that his entire family was killed by the “evil” Woodcarvers. Jefri becomes withdrawn and depressed. Steel then instructs Amdiranifani to convince Jefri to help them use the ship’s technology for defense against the Woodcarvers.

Jefri reveals that he knows how to wake the other children in the ship’s coldsleep chambers. Steel conceals his alarm at the thought of more aliens to manage and claims that they lack sufficient food to sustain the others. Jefri suggests using the ship’s ultrawave to call for help and innocently reveals that the ship has been broadcasting an automatic distress beacon signal since the landing, alerting anyone who might be listening. Steel is fearful of what else might come from the stars.

When Jefri and Amdi are allowed outside to play, Jefri gradually recovers some spirit. He desperately wants to use the ship’s communications to contact his parents’ friends, and Amdi suggests that they first prove themselves to Steel by getting the short-range radios working. That afternoon, they find an unlocked room containing Jefri’s commset and begin working on it.

Meanwhile, in his own den, Steel ruminates on his plans, reading recent intelligence reports of the Woodcarvers’ progress with their own captive alien (Johanna). He is satisfied to see that their alien is “uncooperative,” and he relishes the thought that his secret agents are reporting any relevant information that the alien provides them. He is interested in the name that the Woodcarvers’ alien has given his people: the “Tines.” He resolves to accept this name and fantasizes about conquering the stars. Suddenly, his radio lurches to life, delivering a fake divine message from the mischievous Amdi. Steel, realizing that this is a prank, smashes his radio in rage and laments the necessity of pretending to love the two children so that they will trust him.

Interspersed with the narrative are messages from the Known Net that describe the Blight’s escalating attacks.

The next day, a solemn Steel tells Jefri and Amdi that they will be taken to the ship to call for rescue. Inside, Amdi discovers a strange gray mold spreading on the walls beneath Steel’s sound-muffling quilting. In the cockpit, Jefri tells Amdi that saving everyone is up to them. The chapter ends with a message log showing Relay’s reception of Jefri’s first manually composed distress call, which finally provides context to the beacon that has been broadcasting since the ship’s landing.

On a beach at Relay, the Skroderiders Blueshell and Greenstalk discuss their new contract from Vrinimi Org to rescue the Straumli refugees. Their ship, the Out of Band II (often referred to as the OOB), is being upgraded for the dangerous journey to the Bottom of the Beyond. Blueshell fears that the mission could lead the Blight to its target, but Greenstalk argues that the risk is necessary.

In her office, Ravna Bergsndot has spent weeks managing rescue preparations and communicating with Jefri Olsndot. When Pham Nuwen arrives, she asks him to secure help from Old One for the mission, arguing that the downed ship may contain a weapon against the Blight. Pham refuses, explaining that from the Old One’s rarified perspective, the Blight is little more than a self-destructing nuisance. When Ravna reveals her knowledge that Pham is currently on detached duty and is not being directly teleoperated by Old One at the moment, Pham still refuses to accede to her requests. Furious, she retaliates by deconstructing his fabricated identity, telling him that his Qeng Ho background is a mishmash of archival fragments, and that Pham cannot trust his own memories or identity to be authentic. Pham’s confidence flickers before he scoffs and leaves.

Feeling defeated, Ravna contemplates the Old One’s vast indifference and wonders how to tell the Skroderiders that no help is coming.

Over the following weeks, Ravna successfully argues that she should accompany the Skroderiders on the rescue mission because Jefri will need a human to trust. As the Blight’s expansion slows to predicted limits, the Org grows more interested in the potential commercial advantages that might be gained from the refugee ship’s secrets.

As Ravna and the Skroderiders attend a celebratory beach party, Pham Nuwen seeks Ravna out, his demeanor at once disturbed and apologetic. As Ravna glances at her dataset, she sees that Old One has seized far more bandwidth than ever before, and she intuits that the Power is now operating Pham as an avatar once again.  Pham’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic as Old One seizes control of him. Speaking through Pham’s convulsing body, Old One reveals that he is under attack. He explains that the Blight is something far older and more powerful than anyone knew, and it is now destroying him. His final act is to warn them that Relay is under simultaneous attack—a subtle, long-planned assault that will infiltrate and kill all of Relay’s automation; Old One has summoned their ship to help them escape. He also resolves to give them one final gift. Just before the link breaks, Pham goes into convulsions and collapses, unresponsive.

Grondr confirms the attack over the failing network and pleads with them to complete the mission. As their connection with him is lost, the Docks’ gravity field fails and the landscape itself disintegrates. Ravna and the Skroderiders flee across collapsing terrain, heading to where the Out of Band II hovers in a chasm. As their platform collapses, they fall toward the ship. Debris knocks Pham from Ravna’s grasp, but one of the Riders retrieves him before they reach the airlock.

Blueshell pilots the damaged ship through falling debris, finally reaching a safe orbit. Ship diagnostics show that Pham is breathing and may be salvageable. Three hours later, they are 150 light-years away, part of a group of 10,000 thousand ships that are now fleeing Relay’s destruction. Blueshell wants to abort, but Ravna argues that the Org’s contract still stands and that Old One’s dying belief in the mission makes it more critical than ever. Blueshell reluctantly agrees to continue.