Hadrian reaches the crash site with a Jaddian optio and a small force, finding the Cielcin vessel burning amid Jaddian and Imperial troops. Sir Olorin and Lieutenant Bassander Lin are surprised by Hadrian’s arrival, and Bassander rejects Hadrian’s claim that he can help negotiate because he speaks some Cielcin.

Hadrian argues that war must eventually be won with words, not only soldiers, but Bassander orders him removed for his safety. Hadrian resists the mamluks and presses his case until Lieutenant Jinan Azhar arrives with a report: cutting teams have entered the ship, but there are no living Cielcin aboard and those in fugue are dead. Hadrian connects this to the blue flashes he saw during the ship’s descent and concludes the Cielcin launched shuttles toward Calagah.

After an hour, the soldiers locate a cloaked Cielcin shuttle near a ventilation shaft into the Quiet ruins. Olorin and Bassander split their forces through the tunnels, with Hadrian accompanying Olorin’s Jaddian party. In the dark, Hadrian feels exposed and increasingly aware that he has forced himself into a battlefield for which he is unprepared.

The party is ambushed by four Cielcin in the underground chamber. The aliens kill mamluks and a Jaddian lieutenant, whose body releases a drilling, snake-like device that Olorin cuts apart with his highmatter sword. Hadrian shouts for the Jaddians to activate their lights, and the sudden glare blinds the Cielcin long enough for the humans to stun or restrain several of them while Olorin kills one attacker with effortless skill.

Hadrian insists that at least one Cielcin must be kept alive for questioning. Speaking in the Cielcin language, he orders a restrained alien to stop and asks why it has come to Calagah. The prisoner says the place is holy and not meant for humans, implying a religious connection between the Cielcin and the Quiet ruins.

Hadrian then takes a phase disruptor from a dead mamluk, removes the prisoner’s helmet, and threatens the Cielcin directly. Ashamed but determined, Hadrian fires the weapon repeatedly to force answers, learning that there are eleven Cielcin before lowering the gun and continuing to ask where the others are.