The vatch is delighted in the captain’s cleverness, and sends him on the next leg of what it calls a game. As a ghost-like projection, the captain is sent to talk to Cheel, the leader-in-hiding of an enormous interdimensional space ship that has been taken over by its insane computer. The captain learns that the computer wants to conquer all known space, using the Worms as its advance guard, and their only salvation is that mystery mass. The group is reunited when the vatch transports them all to Karres, but 50,000 years in the past. The captain continues to refine his klatha powers, including how to grab and manipulate small amounts of the vatch’s black energy. When the Leewit shows up – thrown through space and time by the vatch – Goth and the captain learn that the witches of Karres have attacked the Worm World. The two girls and the captain are transported by the vatch to the mad computer’s temple/throne room. There they use their witch powers to destroy the computer and its machine minions. Cheel then emerges to retake the Worm World space ship using the mystery mass, but he has no intention of returning to his home dimension and instead proclaims his intent to conquer all. The vatch is elated by the trick, until the captain hooks and manipulates its energy in order to send the former Worm World back to its own dimension, send himself and the witches back to his ship, and send the ship to its rightful time and place. They arrive on the planet Emris in time to rejoice about the victory with the young witches’ parents.