Manford Torondo leads a Butlerian fleet of two hundred warships to the Tlulaxa planets, intending to make an example of a disliked people. Although the Tlulaxa have lived under strict restrictions since an earlier Butlerian crackdown, Manford assumes they must have strayed and wants visible targets to strengthen his movement.

As the fleet seizes the Bandalong spaceport, Manford's Swordmasters and followers spread through the city, breaking into laboratories, records buildings, and shrines. Anari Idaho warns that the Tlulaxa may have hidden defenses, but Manford believes they are too beaten and fearful to resist.

Anari carries Manford into a biological research facility, where a terrified research chief insists that the lab obeys all Imperial limits and uses no forbidden machines. The chief shows vats containing lab-grown eyes, arguing that the work can heal the blind without harming victims, unlike the old organ-farm crimes.

Manford rejects the justification, declaring that blindness, like his own lack of legs, is God's will and that the Tlulaxa have no right to alter the human body for comfort or convenience. Although Manford privately believes the chief may be telling the truth, he has already decided that destroying such research will provide a dramatic, easily understood demonstration for his followers.

Manford orders the laboratory shut down and all research destroyed. Butlerians smash the tanks, spilling the cultivated eyes across the floor, and when the research chief protests, Anari kills him with her sword. Manford then appoints a vomiting technician as the new chief and says they will next go to Salusa Secundus to help the Emperor keep his promises.