The chapter steps away from Landfall to recount the wider history behind the current mission. Humans from Earth discovered Nod, where a microbial culture encountered human minds, became fascinated by thought and memory, and caused harm because it did not yet understand the beings it entered.

The account then recalls Kern’s World, a terraformed planet left behind after Earth’s civilization destroyed itself. In humanity’s absence, evolved Portiid jumping spiders developed a civilization with help from Kern, a former human terraformer transformed into an electronic intelligence mediated through ant-colony systems.

Later human descendants escaped ruined Earth, rediscovered space, and reached Kern’s World. After a tense first contact, humans, Portiids, and Kern found a more empathic relationship and set out to explore the old terraforming sites together.

The narration also summarizes Nod and Damascus. Damascus produced an uplifted octopus civilization, and contact with the Nodan culture caused a catastrophic incident that left the Octopus civilization surviving in orbit. Later, humans and Portiids from Kern’s World negotiated a new relationship with the Nodan organism, changing it from parasitic to symbiotic, while Octopus technology enabled far-reaching exploration.

The narrator finally identifies itself as an Interlocutor from Nod, currently existing as Miranda. Miranda once volunteered to be learned and copied by the Nodan collective so part of her could remain with an expedition. The Interlocutor stores and reenacts willing minds, can grow bodies for those copied selves, and now uses Miranda’s mindset while travelling with the forming crew of the ship Skipper.

The Interlocutor reflects that it once wore unwilling minds such as Erma Lante and caused destruction through ignorance. Now it claims to follow better ways, seeking life, sentience, and novelty through consent, understanding, and shared exploration.