Sherkaner Underhill completes his drive to Lands Command, aided by his own mechanical tweaks despite repeated breakdowns. With a letter from his cousin to smooth checkpoints, he enters the Royal reservation and observes the hidden breadth of the Accord’s capability: radio masts, an airfield with monoplanes, a massive digger, and ancient stone buildings that survive each New Sun.

Directed to Materials Research, Sherkaner meets Sergeant Hrunkner Unnerby, a wounded veteran tasked with screening proposals. Attempting to sell a bold idea—waking in the Deepest Dark and marching overland to sabotage Tiefstadt targets—Sherkaner faces scorn. Unnerby, jaded by crackpot submissions, ridicules the plan’s physics and extremity, underscoring the lethal cold and near-vacuum conditions.

The exchange shifts when Lieutenant Victory Smith arrives. She probes Sherkaner’s background—mathematics graduate student with medical and mechanical studies—and confirms his grasp of the Dark’s conditions. Sherkaner notes he has biological concepts and mechanical prototypes ready for demonstration.

Recognizing potential, Victory Smith proposes inspecting the prototypes and relocating his auto—parked between generals’ cars. Sherkaner senses that, despite initial derision, he has found precisely the listener who might champion his Deepest Dark strategy within Lands Command’s research apparatus.