Two books into an argument with God, Oolon Colluphid discovers that his next project has no defendant, no evidence, and no precedent—only a blank page, a missing person, and a very old invitation to tea.

Alone, the noise finally gone, Colluphid reads the rest of the folder he's been carrying for weeks and finds out what he was actually holding.

The book publishes quietly. The galaxy answers loudly, four days late, and not in the language Colluphid was braced for.

Colluphid finally writes the book his publisher didn't ask for. It costs him every clever sentence he's ever been proud of, and gives him back something he didn't know he'd lost.

The most dangerous man in the galaxy finds Colluphid at a refueling station cafeteria and orders two coffees. Only one of them is going to get drunk.

Colluphid calls Divna in the middle of the night, for no reason he can name. Neither of them is talking about God, though both of them insist they are.

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.