Sixteen

Ekur-Tkalal, a Carryx keeper-librarian overseeing human assets, approves Dafyd and Jellit's request to conduct a gravity survey across the planet. Dafyd and the spy inhabiting Jellit's body depart in a transport to locate an archive where their report on food production was routed, discovering a massive mysterious structure on the planet surface that the spy recognizes as significant to its origins and mission.

Ekur-Tkalal occupies a middle position in the Carryx hierarchy, having been promoted from soldier-adjacent roles. The keeper-librarian views its human factor Dafyd as a necessary but degrading necessity. When Dafyd and the research leader Jellit request permission to survey gravity variations across the planet, Ekur-Tkalal calculates that the potential benefit to the Sovran—and thus to its own status—outweighs the risk to two human lives, and grants approval. Dafyd and the spy-entity inhabiting Jellit's body prepare to leave, with Dafyd formulating a false report on food production that both he and the spy encode and transmit into Carryx archives. Dafyd wrestles with guilt over his collaboration with the spy, which killed Else and took over Jellit, but accepts the partnership as necessary to strike at the Carryx empire. They board a Carryx transport and fly south across the vast structures and landscape of the world-palace. During the journey, the spy discusses its nature: it has absorbed the memories and consciousnesses of Ameer, Jellit, and Else, existing as a composite entity rather than an individual being. Dafyd struggles emotionally with this revelation and confronts the spy about its other victims. Following signals only the spy can perceive, they descend toward a large gray structure covered in etched lines, which resists the transport's landing. They set down nearby and approach on foot into oppressive surface heat and sulfur-thick air. As they near the structure, the spy develops visible antenna-like filaments and enters an ecstatic state, declaring it can finally "see everything"—suggesting this location is central to the spy's nature and mission.