The Theological Regulatory Authority makes Hurkel Ransen a very reasonable offer. He takes a long walk to refuse it.

On a station under TRA interdiction, Colluphid discovers exactly how right Ford Prefect was about towels, and exactly how little that explains anything.

A short chapter, told in a voice unlike anything else in this book, about hiding something precious somewhere it would still be found.

An accidental conversation with a xenolinguist at a waypoint station forces Oolon Colluphid to consider that the fish was never the proof—it was the gift.

The Theological Regulatory Authority issues a seizure order for Oolon Colluphid's research materials—and Colluphid discovers, with some urgency, that he is considerably better at being right than being invisible.

Oolon Colluphid calls Divna Allay from a freighter in the dark between systems to tell her what Hurkel found at the bottom of the Spawning Pools—and somehow, over six hours, the theological becomes personal.

Ninety-four meters beneath the Spawning Pools of Viltvodle VI, Hurkel Ransen finds the thing that has been waiting four billion years for exactly one purpose. It is empty now. It worked.

Viltvodle VI is a planet with three million years of unbroken theological tradition, one elderly archivist who has been keeping secrets for thirty-seven years, and something at the bottom of the deepest pool that predates the planet. The Babel fish are more beautiful and stranger than the proof-and-disproof argument prepared anyone for.

The Theological Regulatory Authority would like to remind Colluphid that all planned research activities in the Viltvodle VI system are on hold pending a fourteen-month review. The publisher would like to remind him about the commercial window. The university has opened a formal inquiry. He's leaving in four days.

Colluphid travels to Brontitall for a theologian's perspective on the moral catalog. Divna has notes, a diagram, and a story about the mentor the TRA's review process coincided rather unfortunately with.