Cormac disconnect his gridlink, as he has been connected for too long a period of time and is becoming dehumanized. Upon his arrival to Cereb, Cormac takes a Runcible to Minostra, where he boards the starship Hubris for a voyage to Samarkand, where they will conduct an investigation and install a new Runcible. At Samarkand, they discover a not-quite-sane submind of the destroyed Runcible AI. After investigating a heat source at a remote outpost, they find two alien creatures able to live in the extreme conditions. Cormac calls them dracomen, and recognizes them as the products of Dragon, an alien entity he encountered decades ago on Aster Colora; they bring the dracomen back to the Hubris. Subsequent probing of the Runcible site reveals that the Runcible buffers were sabotaged by a nanomycelium, which is still present, endangering the installation of a new Runcible. They also quickly learn that the dracomen have brought the nanomycelium aboard the Hubris, and certain sections of the ship begin to dissolve; the dracomen also inform Cormac that Dragon is on his way. The Hubris AI starts to manufacture and deploy nanomycelium counteragents, both on ship and on the surface of Samarkand. Subsequently, a tunnel is discovered in a remote area of Samarkand which is clearly not of natural origin. Cormac leads a small team to investigate, who, finding that the tunnel is guarded by a large robot, engage in combat that destroys the creature and leads to the death of one man. At the bottom of the shaft they find an empty artefact made of adamantium. The Hubris is attacked by Dragon (actually part thereof, Dragon having disconnected its four component spheres some time previously), who forcibly takes the dracomen. A discussion with Dragon indicates that the artefact held something called Maker, which Dragon claims was responsible for the nanomycelium, and which is now missing from the planet. Dragon allows the crew to install the Runcible; Cormac uses the new Runcible AI to query the old Samarkand submind, and is able to conclude that Maker left Samarkand before the Runcible incident—its destination Viridian. Cormac decides to follow through the new Runcible, taking the two dracomen along. Meanwhile, back on Cheyne III, Pelter and Stanton have been repaired by black-market surgeon Sylac, and Arian has had a particularly hideous augmentation (an "aug") installed in his head. Pelter becomes obsessed with finding and killing Cormac after recovering