Unnerby arrives at Underhill’s modest quarters within a fortified mansion during Calorica’s First Dark festivities. General Victory Smith greets him and takes him to Sherkaner Underhill, who is accompanied by a guide-bug. They exchange brief family updates before turning to the contraband rock flour Unnerby brought from the Kindred’s upland operation.

Unnerby recounts his suspicions: an earlier Kindred–Accord gravity anomaly near the altiplano, a subsequent vast “copper” mine sited atop it, and help from Rachner Thract and Accord engineer Triga Deepdug. The sample is from third-stage refining; the final product is likely far more concentrated.

Underhill has already tested the material: under proper lighting, the dust weighs about 0.5% less, a subtle, non-distillable, likely group effect. He notes an enrichment of tiny diamond forams and speculates about mediating fields, but his local lab is limited. He plans to fly to Princeton immediately for deeper study. Unnerby exults over the potential—hoisting ships into space and solving Dark-era mysteries—while Underhill tempers hope, citing the ongoing threats from the Kindred and Honored Pedure.

After Underhill departs with security to observe the Dark’s crowds, Unnerby and Smith discuss the city’s fearful, decadent mood and their own unease. Smith admits Sherkaner’s tremor and, more starkly, that he has produced no new ideas in three years; anonymous breakthroughs credited to “Tom Lurksalot” are students alone. She fears the erosion of their transformative partnership even as the antigravity discovery promises a new technological frontier.