Aboard the derelict enemy ship, Campar, Ghati, and Vaudai work to cut through the heavily reinforced door. Inside, they discover a control room filled with the corpses of humans and two other unknown alien species. Vaudai locates the ship’s command protocols and communication records, transfers them to a portable form, and determines that the ship’s failure was physical and can’t be remotely detonated. Meanwhile, Campar collects tissue samples. He finds that one corpse, a blackened, five-limbed alien, is unnaturally hard and seems more mechanical than biological. He’s only able to scrape off a few dust-like particles.

Suddenly, the ship’s power reactivates as a battle between the Carryx and their enemy begins. Vaudai warns of an imminent energy-based attack and rushes them into a shelter just as the corridors are flooded with lethal energy. Inside, the sample from the blackened alien animates, forming a tiny drill and attempting to break free of its containment jar. After Campar explains where the sample came from, Vaudai concludes that it’s the deathless enemy, which was very badly compromised and sessile until the ship regained power. Now awake, the deathless enemy begins hunting them, and the group plans to flee through the dangerous corridors to their skiff.

Campar sacrifices himself as a decoy, leading the creature on a loop through the corridors while Ghati and Vaudai shelter. Caught in a surge of lethal energy alongside the creature, he throws his entire sample case out into the deadly field, destroying all the evidence he gathered for the Carryx. Ghati and Vaudai drag him to safety. The Carryx win the battle, and the survivors are told that they’re being sent home.

As the Carryx fleet engages the enemy, a subjugator-librarian orders the evacuation of valuable resources from the ships, including captive species. On one ship, Rickar and other prisoners are loaded into individual evacuation pods. Inside his pod, Rickar has a vivid dream in which he speaks with a version of Else at a café on Anjiin. She reveals that she’s a remnant of the swarm and has placed a “cyst” inside him. Accepting his fate, Rickar feels a sense of purpose in his sacrifice.

The cyst activates, reconfiguring Rickar’s body into a transmitter that broadcasts a massive packet of data containing everything the swarm had learned to its allies and creators. The energy of the broadcast unmakes Rickar’s flesh, and the pod then explodes. 

Later, Surur-Tlassen, the regulator-librarian to the Sovran, reports on imperial matters. He mentions the anomalous explosion of Rickar’s pod, noting that it “stuttered” in a way inconsistent with a typical system failure. The Sovran notes the “pattern of anomaly” surrounding the humans from Anjiin and instructs Surur to investigate whether they’re useful enough to justify keeping them alive despite these strange occurrences (336).

Dafyd meets with Ekur-Tkalal, who questions him about Rickar’s “death broadcast.” The news of his friend’s death shocks Dafyd, and he struggles to maintain his composure. He explains that human beliefs about a soul are metaphorical, not a literal transmission of data. Grief-stricken, he fumbles through his report, admitting that his teams are behind schedule and then clumsily raising their demand that the guards be removed from the labs. Ekur becomes subtly hostile, but Dafyd manages to placate it by reframing the demand as mere information, not a request. At the end of the meeting, Ekur orders Dafyd to select 300 more humans for fieldwork.

Distraught, Dafyd seeks out Tomos in the new, expanding human habitat. He confesses his fear that he’s failing as a leader. Tomos comforts him with the concept of “wisdom stories,” which teach that life is often brutal and unfair. She tells him that his duty is simply to persevere, even when it feels hopeless, and she encourages him to join the construction crew to clear his mind.

On a remote planet, Jessyn is under the constant, suspicious watch of Third Gardener. When the Sinen overseer announces an imminent evacuation due to approaching enemy ships, Jessyn knows she has little time to act. That night, she sneaks to the orchard to retrieve the sabotage device. Third Gardener and its Rak-hund guard ambush her, but Jessyn uses the gun she hid with the device to kill them both.

The next day, a Carryx soldier questions Jessyn, but she maintains that she doesn’t know what happened to Third Gardener and is dismissed. Alone, she activates the device, releasing a fine, intensely cold dust that quickly dissipates. The Carryx ships prepare to lift off, but as they power up, the engines fail. An alarm announces an enemy attack, and Jessyn assumes that the human rescue ships are firing on them, unaware of the captives aboard. She braces for death, but the ship’s systems unexpectedly restart, and they ascend safely. Later, in transit, she discovers a coded message from Garral in her notes in which he apologizes for leaving without her.

At the world-palace, Brun struggles to train a new technical crew. He’s approached by a woman named Clae Audin, who claims to have been an assistant to Else and is qualified to take over Tonner’s work. The narrative reveals that Clae is the swarm, which created an entirely new body and identity after days in isolation because it felt revulsion at the idea of treating Jellit’s body like a costume to be worn and altered at will. While transforming, it explored the Carryx archive and learned of Rickar’s death. Using pheromones and manufactured memories, Clae establishes her new identity within the human community.

Meanwhile, Dafyd secretly communicates with the Deep Lothark, a hidden consciousness existing within the Soft Lothark guards. Clae later finds Dafyd, who is furious that the swarm abandoned its cover as Jellit. She asserts her autonomy, arguing that her new role is essential to the protein translation project, and subtly threatens him by reminding him of their shared goal. Dafyd relents and explains his plan to assassinate the Sovran and coordinate an invasion with the enemy. He needs a reliable way to communicate with them, but Clae says that she sent an earlier packet of her own observations using a method she can’t use again and that, even if she could, the archive’s contents are now too vast to transmit.

While all the other humans disembark and begin their new lives on Anjiin, Ke can’t join them because Ash-Abbé resents being tricked by his song and will attack humanity if he stops singing. He sacrifices himself by steering the bird deep into space.

Jessyn and the other field operatives return to the world-palace. She’s stunned to see how the human moiety has flourished in her absence and created a small, vivid civilization with farms, a school, and public art. Bastien tells her that Tonner is dead because he lost his temper with Dafyd and a guard overreacted. He also says that Jellit is away on assignment.

Jessyn finds Dafyd in his garden with Clae. She’s struck by Dafyd’s worn appearance and by Clae’s strange, emotional reaction to seeing her. After Clae departs, Jessyn reveals the truth about her mission: She made contact with the Carryx’s “deathless enemy,” sent the archaeologist Garral to live with them as a liaison, and discovered that the deathless enemy is, in fact, human.

Dafyd, who has insomnia, oversees the birthing of the first 100 babies from the artificial “lamb sacks.” The entire human community gathers for the event, which is filled with joy and hope. Dafyd carries the first newborn out to the nursery, but he feels no triumph, only the weight of his secret burdens.

After the ceremony, he confronts Brun in the lab. Brun formally begins the threatened work stoppage, demanding the removal of the guards. Dafyd explains that the Carryx don’t see this as a labor dispute but as a direct challenge to his authority, which must be resolved according to their brutal customs. He then orders his Soft Lothark guards to hold Brun down. To quell the rebellion and prevent a lethal Carryx response, Dafyd breaks Brun’s arm, warning him and the horrified team that any further challenges will result in death.

Campar reports to Dafyd and Clae. He describes the derelict ship, the dead humans, and the “deathless” alien that behaved more like a reanimated machine than a living being. Later, Ghati informs him that he’s being sent on another dangerous mission with Vaudai. Ghati then ends their relationship, confessing that he can’t bear the pain of potentially watching Campar die again. Vaudai arrives and confirms that the mission is unsafe. Vaudai adds that the war is hopeless, saying that the enemy is in retreat and that the Carryx will inevitably win.

Late that night, Clae knocks at Dafyd’s quarters, and he brings her inside. She presents a new theory: The “deathless enemy” isn’t a single species but an unkillable, virus-like “set of instructions” that can be applied to any organism (410), turning it into a soldier. This is why the Carryx have seen it manifest in different species over millions of years.

The regulator-librarian Surur-Tlassen attends a ritual combat between the Sovran and her newly matured daughter. In the chamber are high-ranking Carryx and the “remnants,” former librarians who now tend the private creche where the Sovran’s daughters are raised. After a fierce battle, the daughter brutally kills her mother. At the moment of the Sovran’s death, Surur’s psychic connection to her is severed, and he feels a deep sense of peace and release from his lifelong ambition. As the new Sovran sings, attuning the empire to her rule, Surur feels nothing. He understands that his old life is over and walks across the chamber to join the remnants.

Meanwhile, Dafyd is meeting with Ekur-Tkalal when a vast, choral song echoes through the palace. Ekur joins in and then informs Dafyd that the Sovran is dead and that a new one has taken her place, an event of no consequence to “animals.” The news gives Dafyd an important insight. He realizes that his plan to assassinate the Sovran is flawed because she isn’t a unique, irreplaceable queen but is instead designed to be easily replaced.

Dafyd communicates with the Deep Lothark and learns the full truth of the Carryx’s resilience. When their original home world was destroyed, the empire didn’t fall because there are hundreds of private creches on different worlds, each with a replacement Sovran ready. The moment one dies, another awakens, ensuring seamless continuity of rule. The Deep Lothark believe that the empire is unbeatable.

Dafyd shares this news with Jessyn, Campar, and Tomos. The plan to kill the Sovran is useless. Campar argues that they should abandon their resistance and accept their fate as a subjugated but surviving species, like domesticated animals. Furious, Dafyd storms out and goes to the nursery, where he finds a small measure of peace holding one of the newborns. Clae joins him, having confirmed the information from the Deep Lothark by consulting the archive. Dafyd explains that his flawed plan was based on the idea that the Sovran was a single point of failure. Now, he understands that the Carryx’s real strategy is making their leader trivially replaceable. As he holds the baby, a new, audacious idea forms. The strength of the Carryx is that there’s only one Sovran. He looks at Clae and asks, “What if there were two?” (433).

Garral is taken to a new room in his prison where he meets an old man named Carlon, his new interrogator. Carlon shows Garral a live image of a hallway on the Carryx world-palace, just outside the human living quarters. He reveals that the image was sent to them via a secure protocol during a recent battle and asks if Garral knows who might have sent it. Garral, who is unaware of the swarm’s existence, says he does not. Carlon then begins his interrogation, asking Garral to tell him about his home world, Anjiin.