Caterham employs Redwood "père" as an envoy to send a proposed settlement, whose terms would demand that the giants live apart somewhere and forgo the right to reproduce. The offer is indignantly rejected at a meeting of the giants, where one of Cossar's sons expresses a belief in growth as part of the law of life: "We fight not for ourselves but for growth, growth that goes on for ever. Tomorrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for evermore. To grow according to the will of God!" The novel concludes with the world on the verge of a long struggle between the "little people" and the Children of the Food, whose ultimate victory is perhaps suggested by the novel's final image: "For one instant son of Cossar shone, looking up fearlessly into the starry deeps, mail-clad, young and strong, resolute and still. Then the light had passed and he was no more than a great black outline against the starry sky, a great black outline that threatened with one mighty gesture the firmament of heaven and all its multitude of stars."