that lives in the bloodstream and grants many benefits: it fights disease, dissolves blood clots, repairs and cleans fatty deposits from the circulatory system, and maintains hormone levels at those of an adult. These advancements are amazingly beneficial, but that is the precise problem. Colonists, once they learn of them, would assume that the organ banks had become obsolete, and expect Implementation to disband. However, these advancements only reduce the need for transplants; they do not remove it entirely. But when Implementation continues to take colonists to the banks, they would assume that necessity had given way to malevolence. Every colonist on Plateau would revolt. At least half the population would perish in the conflict, and technological civilization might come to an end. Thus, the political figure Parlette wants to negotiate a replacement for the Covenant of Planetfall with the rebels in advance, and thereby prevent such a conflict. Though the rebels are perfectly willing to deal, there is still one significant problem: Implementation. Any settlement with the Colonists would involve reducing the power of the Crew's police force. As such, Implementation would be on the side of the conservative Crew faction: those who would die before accepting a compromise with those they currently hold the power of life and death over. Implementation controls the best weapons on Plateau, and they have already made a decision as to the impact of the ramscoop's cargo. At the hospital, Implementation leader Jesus Pietro Castro has been interrogating Polly. Specifically, he has been enraging her by explaining the situation; first, he reveals that Implementation permitted the Sons of Earth to exist solely as a constant source of organ donors – thinning it periodically as if it was a herd of husbanded animals. Second, his "father" was over seventy when he was conceived, and required supplementary testosterone; instead of periodic injections, he chose to be transplanted with the testicles of an executed Colonist – the class schism between Colonist and Crew means that the two have effectively become distinct races, both of which consider miscegenation a greater taboo than incest – and the revelation that Jesus is half-Colonist disgusts her even more than the revelation that she and her fellow Colonists are nothing but cattle to the Crew; cattle that have just been completely culled. As the ramship cargo has sharply banked the need for organ transplants, the decision was made to eliminate the