In a descending elevator capsule on Damascus, Salome 39 panics because the capsule is not her familiar tank and lacks her usual games and handlers. Paul 51, trapped with her, becomes alarmed because the elevator systems convey that if Salome overrides the safeties, both octopuses and their water environment will be expelled miles above the planet’s surface.

The chapter explains that Senkovi has used carefully selected Rus-Califi viral modifications to uplift the octopuses without making them humanlike. Paul’s fear and Salome’s frustration are displayed involuntarily through their changeable skin, while much of their practical reasoning occurs in their semi-autonomous arms, described as the Reach, rather than in the central brain, or Crown.

Salome’s arms probe the capsule’s systems and search for ways to open it, while Salome’s conscious mind only understands that she wants out. Paul’s body and systems understand enough of the danger to signal fear, first generally and then specifically toward Salome, but Salome ignores the warning because Salome is larger and does not see Paul as a serious threat.

Against ordinary octopus instinct, Paul attacks Salome to stop Salome from breaching the capsule. The two wrestle violently, with their central brains setting broad intentions while their arms conduct the actual tactics of the fight.

Because the uplift has made the octopuses more social and more capable of shared signaling, the fight ends not in injury or death but in a mutual break. Salome resumes trying to bypass the safeties, then stops as the danger Paul conveyed becomes associated in Salome’s mind with breaking out. Salome withdraws and sulks at the bottom of the capsule, while Paul clings above and gradually recovers.