Dr. Zhoma arrives on Salusa Secundus expecting to become Emperor Salvador Corrino’s private physician and hoping the prestigious post will help rescue the financially strained Suk School. Secretly, she also carries out Reverend Mother Raquella’s assignment: she has brought a sterilization chemical that she intends to hide in a vitamin supplement for Salvador after examining the Corrino family.

After waiting uneasily at the spaceport, Zhoma is met by Vilhelm Chang, who takes her not to the Imperial Palace but to the old Suk School building in Zimia. Zhoma first interprets the gathered crowds and dignitaries as a possible reception, but she becomes alarmed when she sees Manford Torondo there with his Butlerian followers. Roderick Corrino quietly apologizes and warns her that the event is not what she expects.

Manford leads the crowd toward the historic Suk School building, and Salvador admits the action is happening by Imperial command. The Butlerians set the structure aflame with prepared accelerants while Salvador watches and applauds politely. Zhoma is devastated as explosions and fire destroy the school, and she realizes Salvador is more fully under Manford’s influence than she had wanted to believe.

Zhoma challenges Manford and Salvador, arguing that the Suk School could have helped thousands of patients and that destroying medical facilities will cause preventable deaths. Salvador deflects by citing concerns about technology, while Manford claims Suk medicine resembles the atrocities of Erasmus. Roderick intervenes only enough to reject Manford’s threat of inspections on Parmentier, telling Zhoma the present battle is already lost.

Manford then reads from Erasmus’s journals, describing horrific experiments on human captives and using those accounts to condemn medical research and life-preserving technology. Horrified by the crowd’s fervor and Salvador’s compliance, Zhoma concludes that Raquella’s fears about the Corrino bloodline are credible and that Salvador must at least be sterilized. After the destruction, Salvador cheerfully invites Zhoma to the palace for a banquet and treatment, acting as if the matter is settled.