After Karee Marques leaves and with no word from Draigo Roget, Gilbertus Albans feels isolated at the Mentat School. In that solitude, Gilbertus decides to take another dangerous risk for Erasmus. He tells the robot’s memory core that he has prepared a surprise and even bypassed Erasmus’s spyeyes to keep it secret.

Gilbertus places the memory core in a valise and takes a motorboat across the marsh lake to a hidden island near the school. There, beyond concealed waterways and thick vegetation, Gilbertus reaches a sealed contemplation cottage known to the staff only as a private retreat. Inside, he reveals a battered, deactivated combat robot that he has secretly assembled as a temporary body for Erasmus.

Gilbertus installs Erasmus’s core into the combat mek, whose original control mind has been removed. Erasmus activates the ungainly body and is delighted to be mobile again, even though the form is crude compared with his former flowmetal body destroyed on Corrin. Gilbertus warns that the secret must remain hidden, because the Butlerians would destroy Erasmus forever if they discovered him.

Gilbertus leads Erasmus outside along hidden trails, where Erasmus becomes excited by the marsh environment. When Erasmus sees paddle tortoises offshore, he impulsively decides to capture one for study, ignoring Gilbertus’s warnings that the marsh is unstable and that the body is not fully durable. Gilbertus has intentionally disabled the robot’s weapons and also chosen the treacherous surroundings as a security measure, anticipating Erasmus’s lack of restraint.

Erasmus wades into the muck after the tortoises, but the heavy combat body sinks and begins to fail as water floods its systems. Gilbertus uses a suspensor canoe to reach the mired robot while dangerous leeches approach. He manages to remove the memory core just before the body disappears beneath the swamp.

Back at the cottage, Gilbertus tells Erasmus that he overextended himself and that another body cannot be smuggled from the school for a long time. Erasmus is disappointed but exhilarated, treating the brief experience as proof of what mobility could mean when he eventually has a better body again.