The chapter shifts to Damascus a century or two before the arrival of the Portiids and their Humans. Over many centuries, Damascan octopus civilization has not followed a linear path of progress. The octopuses maintain space elevators, orbital stations, a communications network, cybernetic implants, and extensive technical records derived from old human systems, but their culture and historical memory remain fluid, performative, and resistant to fixed writing.

The octopuses’ development has advanced in surges and retreats. At times most of the population has lived simply while a few maintained the machines; at other times waves of invention have swept through society before interest moved elsewhere. Despite their volatile temperaments and powerful inherited technology, the Damascans have avoided destroying themselves for millennia.

That stability now fails because the octopuses have become too successful. Damascus holds about thirty-nine billion octopuses, beyond the ecosystem’s natural capacity. Ingenious solutions have repeatedly postponed collapse, but waste, broken machines, failed experiments, and overcrowding have reduced usable living space, driving migration, hunger, and conflict across the sea floor.

The octopuses respond partly by expanding into space. Habitats grow around orbital elevator termini, and offworld communities develop their own cultures. They avoid landing on Nod because Senkovi’s old prohibition persists through inherited records and subconscious caution, so their attention turns instead to the outer system, asteroid mining, and bioengineered tardigrade workers.

Conflict spreads from Damascus’s oceans to its orbital settlements as factions form and dissolve unpredictably. In one overcrowded city, a new Paul lives amid toxic water, anoxia, hunger, and mass death among the young. After losing spawn and enduring deprivation, Paul rises from his den and broadcasts rage and desperation through his skin, turning neighbours and enemies into followers.

Paul’s display becomes a riot. Hundreds and then thousands join him, attacking those with even slightly better conditions and tearing the city apart in an act of redistribution and destruction. Paul will die, and many others will die with him, but in his poisoned, desperate mind the uprising feels like the most beautiful act he has ever achieved.