The narrator tells us that a thousand years before the events of this chapter, the Deo Gratias, a ship that had been in orbit for a long time, had been destroyed by an earthquake. The ship's engines had not been working for some time, and the narrator wonders if they might still be working. He suggests that they look at the belly of the ship and see if it's full of scrap metal. If it is, the place will soon be a "real inferno" . The narrator suggests that if he wants to cease his existence in the prison, he can do so on holovision. He also suggests that the prison might as well be on a holovision system, since the heat of the day is about to get too hot for the prison. He urges the prisoners to exit the ship. He tells them that they're trapped in the "kingdom of the stars" , and that they should try to lose the prisoners in the reeds. The hornes farm is also in a bad mood. They've been spying on the narrator, and he's not sure if they've found anything suspicious. He's also worried that if they go back, they'll be killed by a poisonous "aquatic parasite." He tells the hornes that they can repay him when the prison is completely out of the mess. He reminds them that the universe is "infinite," and that the descendants of human pioneers have found their own "promised land" throughout it all.