The next morn­ing, the nar­ra­tor was awak­ened ear­ly and brought to the ship’s upper lev­el where the paint crew gath­ered. This area served as a com­mis­sary for the med­ical staff and oth­er ship per­son­nel. The crew con­sist­ed of five mem­bers, infor­mal­ly led by a tena­cious woman named Beezie. Skep­ti­cal of new­com­ers, she nonethe­less rec­og­nized that no one want­ed the unpleas­ant task of scrap­ing the walls, which were in dis­re­pair. The oth­ers, includ­ing Ver­lyn, an alope­cia-strick­en teen; Didi­er, an old­er man marked by scars; and Har­ri­et, a fierce and fear­less woman, shared the work. Har­ri­et held a belief that every­thing one cre­at­ed had an impact, a sen­ti­ment that res­onat­ed with the nar­ra­tor.

They were occa­sion­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a guard named Burke, who, despite his intim­i­dat­ing pres­ence, took an inter­est in the crew’s lives. He appre­cia­tive­ly encour­aged Ver­lyn to share a bizarre sto­ry from his child­hood about a dog trans­for­ma­tion. This humor­ous dis­trac­tion drew atten­tion away from their task—a sit­u­a­tion that irri­tat­ed Beezie. Burke was also respon­si­ble for intro­duc­ing the nar­ra­tor to Mar­cel, a jan­i­tor whose pres­ence had an uplift­ing effect on the crew.

As the nar­ra­tor worked, they dis­cussed the recent escape of a group known as “the twelve,” spark­ing intrigue among those below deck. The atmos­phere thick­ened with fumes from clean­ing solu­tions, incit­ing pan­ic until a fresh breeze blew in when a young jan­i­tor entered, caus­ing a pal­pa­ble change in the crew’s mood. They spec­u­lat­ed about Marcel’s back­ground and his con­nec­tions, roman­tic or oth­er­wise, with oth­er crew mem­bers, par­tic­u­lar­ly focus­ing on his inter­ac­tions with Tove, a cook.

Mar­cel soon arrived with a tray of pas­tries, and the crew indulged, for­get­ting their exhaus­tion amid the delight­ful treats. He spoke kind­ly to every­one, show­ing a per­son­able touch that endeared him to the crew. When the nar­ra­tor men­tioned search­ing for a young girl named Sol, Mar­cel promised to keep an eye out but kept their con­ver­sa­tion light.

Lat­er, the nar­ra­tor was sum­moned to per­form for Wer­ryck. He noticed the old­er man had improved phys­i­cal­ly, and the meet­ing turned per­son­al as Wer­ryck spoke of Sol’s progress, not­ing she was thriv­ing under her cur­rent care. The con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed to the narrator’s con­cerns about Tom Skint, a men­ac­ing fig­ure, but Wer­ryck assured him that Skint had already received con­se­quences for his actions. Wer­ryck, how­ev­er, cau­tioned the nar­ra­tor against seek­ing par­i­ty for past griev­ances, sug­gest­ing that on the ship, pow­er dynam­ics were essen­tial and that he must focus sole­ly on play­ing music as expect­ed.