Antioch appears to have been settled by humans at one time, but it has been deserted for a long time—decades, if not centuries. Although the team visits only a handful of the city-complexes, there are presumably numerous cities around the planet. All of them contain enigmatic and crumbling structures. The first startling discovery the team makes foreshadows the epiphany of evil which looms over the Argonos for the latter part of the book. A number of human remains are found outside several of the city-complexes. The remains are all but decayed with only bones remaining, and the few intact skeletons they find reveal no apparent trauma or instance of a violent death. However, the second discovery haunts the team even after leaving the planet. The team enters a glass structure which at first reveals nothing about the world or its former inhabitants. In the structure, they uncover a staircase winding down underground to another chamber. At the bottom of the staircase lies a nightmare: in a vast room there are contained, on hooks and in chains, an unimaginable number of mutilated human skeletons, including a number of children and infants. The Argonos is contacted at once and the team decides it is time to leave. The Argonos prepares to leave orbit, but amongst the underclasses there is talk of settling on Antioch. Par, a friend of Bartolomeo asks him for his help in a planned insurrection; the common people of the ship's blue-collar "lower decks" desire to leave Argonos and live on Antioch in order to escape their lives of unending drudgery on the Argonos. Bartolomeo agrees to help and he obtains access codes for the bay-doors and shuttles. However, the operation is thwarted and fails miserably resulting in several participants, including Bartolomeo, being taken into custody. Bartolomeo soon discovers that Nikos knew about Bartolomeo's involvement and used it to his advantage and reassert himself as captain. Bartolomeo remains in prison for months on end until he is finally released along with all of the other prisoners. He stands before the Executive Council and defends his reasons for aiding in the operation. Under his advice, other political prisoners are pardoned. Bartolomeo's position as advisor is reinstated and he is updated on a new mystery which Argonos has come across. Unbeknownst to the planet exploration team, upon their entry into one of the buildings on Antioch, a signal from the building