Chapter 71 (When the weak become powerful)

Ptolemy compels visiting Suk doctors to extract and preserve Administrator Noffe’s brain, adapting their Navigator procedures to save him. He patiently calibrates thoughtrodes and a speakerpatch, soothing Noffe’s panic until coherent communication returns. When Noffe laments darkness, Ptolemy installs optic threads, restoring perception and dramatically expanding Noffe’s sensory range.

With growing confidence, Noffe embraces his disembodied state, praising its advantages while Ptolemy battles worsening lung damage. Noffe urges Ptolemy to consider conversion, planting a seed Ptolemy has long contemplated. Ptolemy equips Noffe with an older cymek walker, and Noffe revels in mobility, spectrum vision, and amplified hearing across Denali’s harsh terrain.

Ptolemy accompanies Noffe in his repaired, enclosed walker, privately confronting his frailty and fear of combat. Observing New Titans with Navigator brains drilling for battle, he recognizes that a cymek body would let him both fight and continue his research, free of pain and weakness. Convinced by Noffe’s success, he decides to undergo the procedure.

Returning to the domes—now being rapidly rebuilt by cymeks after the prior explosion—Ptolemy notes that space operations will soon resume and the Suk doctors will depart. Acting before they leave, he declares his intention to convert and instructs the Suks to prepare for many such surgeries, signaling a broader cymek expansion ahead.