Crawler Milk’s cookbook note recalls making a traditional stew that “awakens” migration knowledge in the young, and Milk mourns being taken before preparing it, fearing for those left without guidance.

On the Shadow Boxer set, Rosetta Thagra forces Carl to revisit his childhood: on his fifteenth birthday, Carl’s mother poisoned Carl’s father and hanged herself, and Carl found her. Carl admits that months later Carl’s father vanished, leaving Carl alone until authorities noticed after the power shut off. Rosetta plays footage of Carl’s interrogation, where police briefly suspect Carl of killing Carl’s father, then lose interest once Carl’s father is found alive elsewhere; Carl remembers craving even that false adult attention.

Rosetta pivots to the Anacortes Boys’ Ranch and the sparse records about Carl. Carl describes being kept busy with maintenance work and being housed and fed, insisting it could have been worse, while refusing to fuel anti-Earth narratives. Carl notices a displayed “photo” of Carl cooking is impossible and evidently fake, suggesting Rosetta is planting a message rather than showing real evidence.

Rosetta claims Carl regularly made a simple stew—milk and potatoes—for “stew night.” Carl plays along, repeating the ingredients, and Rosetta echoes the phrasing about versatility, reinforcing Carl’s suspicion that the exchange is coded and connected to Milk’s cookbook entries about mapping, portals, and inks. Before Rosetta can continue, Harbinger abruptly terminates the interview, accuses Rosetta and Carl of cheating via coded speech, bans Rosetta from future interviews, and threatens to get Carl and Donut removed from the crawl.

Back in the green room, Donut checks on Carl and expresses anger at Rosetta’s personal questions, while Zev fumes about Harbinger’s interference and staffing chaos during the Valtay changeover. Zev mentions Odette has “specials” airing about Donut and other crawlers, and Carl privately connects the “milk and potatoes / root vegetables” signal to the toraline-yam problem and to the likelihood that the Open Intellect Pacifist Network employs multiple former cookbook owners.

The chapter closes with more cookbook notes: Milk vows to pack the sixth edition with information so it will “feed” a future reader and imagines a galaxy-wide reckoning, and Crawler Rosetta, in the ninth edition, agrees and swears their words will not be lost.