This chapter opens with a flashback to the events of the previous chapter, in which we learn that the mensab, the first human to inhabit the cave, has been taken prisoner by the "silicon life" and is being held in solitary confinement. The flashback also shows that the first humans in the cave were transported to the fourteenth cave, where they are now being held captive by the other inhabitants of the cave. The first man in the flashback is named Mensab and he tells the others that he is a prisoner of the silicon life. He tells them that he has come to search for the "net terminal gene" and that they are enemies of the other life, too. He asks where the people in the eighth cave have been sent, and they tell him that they have been moved to the thirteenth, where there are no human beings. He also tells the other men that he will never forgive them for blocking his person, and he promises to protect the other settlers as well. The other men tell the men that they will go on without them, and the men tell them that they need to leave the cave before they die. The men then point out that the arrows they have killed are the ones that the other humans use to kill intruders.