The chap­ter opens with Theo meet­ing Xan, the War­den of Eng­land, who insists on walk­ing with him in the park. Xan wears an out­dat­ed but cher­ished coat, spark­ing a mem­o­ry of their past con­ver­sa­tions about fash­ion and per­ma­nence. Their dia­logue quick­ly turns tense as Xan warns Theo about the dan­gers of his recent asso­ci­a­tions, imply­ing he can no longer ful­ly pro­tect him. Theo chal­lenges Xan’s author­i­ty, ques­tion­ing why he clings to pow­er, to which Xan responds with a mix of prag­ma­tism and cyn­i­cism, admit­ting he ini­tial­ly enjoyed the pow­er but now stays out of duty and to avoid bore­dom.

Xan reflects on the despair of a world with­out chil­dren, mock­ing reli­gious beliefs about the end times while acknowl­edg­ing the pro­found grief of child­less­ness. He press­es Theo to reveal who has influ­enced his recent actions, but Theo deflects, claim­ing his insights come from ordi­nary peo­ple. Xan dis­miss­es this, accus­ing Theo of being a poor emis­sary for dis­sent, and threat­ens to shut down Oxford’s adult edu­ca­tion school if it becomes a hub of rebel­lion. Their exchange reveals Xan’s author­i­tar­i­an stance and Theo’s grow­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the regime.

As they walk, Theo con­fronts Xan about the ethics of state-man­dat­ed sperm test­ing and the pro­mo­tion of pornog­ra­phy cen­ters. Xan defends these poli­cies as nec­es­sary for main­tain­ing order and hope in a ster­ile world, argu­ing that even flawed meth­ods are jus­ti­fied if they might restore fer­til­i­ty. Theo chal­lenges the moral­i­ty of these mea­sures, but Xan remains unmoved, pri­or­i­tiz­ing con­trol and soci­etal sta­bil­i­ty over indi­vid­ual rights. Their debate under­scores the dystopi­an real­i­ty of a soci­ety des­per­ate for sur­vival at any cost.

The chap­ter clos­es with Theo and Xan dis­cussing Wool­combe, a place sym­bol­ic of the era’s stag­na­tion, where the elder­ly linger with­out pur­pose. Xan express­es dis­dain for the futil­i­ty of pro­long­ing life with­out mean­ing, while Theo probes into Xan’s frac­tured fam­i­ly his­to­ry. Their con­ver­sa­tion, alter­nat­ing between per­son­al and polit­i­cal, high­lights the deep divi­sions between them—Xan’s cold prag­ma­tism con­trast­ing with Theo’s moral ques­tion­ing. The chap­ter leaves their con­flict unre­solved, set­ting the stage for fur­ther ten­sion.