Josef Venport returns from Denali to VenHold headquarters on Kolhar and is met by Cioba and Security Chief Ekbir with alarming news: a spy has been captured in the Navigator fields. The infiltrator had convincing credentials and access, but VenHold technicians quickly sensed something wrong. Josef realizes the man has seen the tanks where embryonic Navigators are exposed to concentrated melange gas.

Josef, Cioba, and Ekbir consider likely culprits, especially rival transport companies desperate to understand why VenHold ships navigate foldspace safely while competitors suffer accidents. Josef is willing to exploit anti-computer laws against rivals if useful, despite personally having no objection to machines, because preserving VenHold’s advantage matters most.

In the underground interrogation area, Dr. Wantori shows Josef the prisoner suspended in sensory deprivation. Josef interrupts the process to speak directly to the spy, who identifies himself as Royce Fayed but refuses to reveal who sent him. Josef orders Wantori to extract everything.

Two weeks later, Fayed is brought to Josef’s office badly damaged by interrogation. Ekbir reports that Fayed works for Celestial Transport and was hired personally by Arjen Gates, whose company is failing after repeated foldspace accidents and VenHold’s denial of insurance coverage. Fayed then reveals that Celestial Transport scouts have found hundreds of intact robot ships and the facilities to support them, but that Gates lacks Navigators to use the fleet safely.

Josef is shaken and excited by the possibility of such a fleet, but Fayed says he does not know the coordinates of the robotic facility. Rather than execute Fayed, Josef takes him to Norma Cenva’s Navigator tank. Because Cioba believes Fayed has potential and Josef wants a punishment suited to the crime, Josef orders guards to seal Fayed in an empty tank and fill it with spice gas, forcing the spy into the very secret he came to steal.