After Norma Cenva rescues Josef Venport from the Thonaris disaster, Josef and Cioba place all of Venport Holdings on high alert. Josef studies the scale of the defeat: thousands of employees killed or possibly captured, armed patrol ships destroyed, recovered machine vessels reduced to scrap, and valuable equipment and materials lost. Josef concludes that Manford Torondo’s followers are no longer an annoyance but an existential threat.

Cioba comes to Josef with news of another crisis: Emperor Salvador has attacked Rossak, executed the Sisterhood’s Mentats, including Cioba’s grandmother Karee Marques, and disbanded the order despite finding no proof of illegal technology. Cioba confirms that their daughters are safe and urges Josef to shelter Raquella’s displaced Sisters, arguing that the Sisterhood’s abilities could benefit VenHold and that the Sisters will remember the debt.

Josef quickly recognizes the strategic value of Cioba’s proposal and authorizes VenHold ships to provide sanctuary to Raquella and any Sister who asks for aid. During the Rossak evacuation, many Sisters have already scattered, but Raquella accepts the VenHold offer for those aligned with her. Although the Azhar Book copies on Rossak have been destroyed, Raquella knows other copies and trained memories remain elsewhere, so she believes the core of the Sisterhood can survive.

Aboard a VenHold spacefolder, Raquella grieves the murdered Mentats and Sorceresses, including Karee, and worries about Sisters who have gone into exile convinced the order cannot regroup. Raquella also reflects that the hidden breeding records and dismantled computers remain safe in the jungle cenote. Once she establishes a new school beyond Imperial oversight, Raquella intends to recover those records and rebuild the Sisterhood.

Later, Josef and Draigo Roget meet near Norma’s Navigator tanks on Kolhar. Draigo admits that the battle taught the limits of Mentat projection because Norma’s intervention could not have been predicted, while Norma explains that prescience contains many variables. Josef cuts off the abstract discussion and orders preparations to defend Kolhar, shield VenHold ships, arm the fleet, and deny transport services to any world siding with Manford.

Draigo warns that militarizing thousands of VenHold vessels will be costly and risky, but Josef frames the coming conflict as a war between reason and superstition, progress and barbarism. Josef believes planets must choose sides and that worlds embracing Manford’s extremism should feel the consequences of rejecting technology. Despite Draigo’s warning that the struggle could last years or decades, Josef commits VenHold’s resources to the fight.