A violent mass riot breaks out, fomented by Egtverchi and made possible by the psychosis present in many of the citizens as a result of living in the 'shelter state' (an earlier reference to the "Corridor Riots of 1993" indicates that this is not the first time violence has burst out among the buried cities). During the riot, Agronski dies as a result of being stung by one or more genetically modified honey bees. Ruiz-Sanchez administers Extreme Unction, despite his almost-faithless state. Egtverchi secretly boards a spaceship to Lithia. Michelis and Ruiz-Sanchez are taken to the Moon, where a new telescope has been assembled, based on "a fundamental twist on the Haertel equations which makes it possible to "see" around normal space-time, as well as travel around it" so that the instrument presents a view of Lithia in real-time, bypassing the delay caused by the speed of light. Cleaver is on Lithia, setting up his reactors, but the physicist who invented the telescope technology believes he has found a fault in Cleaver's reasoning. There is a chance that the work will set off a chain reaction in the planet's rocks and destroy it.