The chap­ter opens with Theo dis­cov­er­ing a print­ed mes­sage from a group called the Five Fish­es, demand­ing reforms from the author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment. The demands include hold­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion, grant­i­ng civ­il rights to Sojourn­ers (migrant work­ers), abol­ish­ing the Qui­etus (a euthana­sia pro­gram), end­ing depor­ta­tions to the Isle of Man Penal Colony, and stop­ping com­pul­so­ry fer­til­i­ty test­ing. The mes­sage is sim­ple and humane, but Theo reacts with exas­per­a­tion, doubt­ing its effec­tive­ness. He sus­pects Julian, a mem­ber of the group, authored it, yet believes their efforts are futile due to their lack of resources and pow­er.

Theo reflects on the group’s unre­al­is­tic ambi­tions, ques­tion­ing how they expect to chal­lenge the regime with­out orga­ni­za­tion or pub­lic sup­port. He acknowl­edges their goal of spark­ing dissent—such as refus­ing med­ical examinations—but sees it as mean­ing­less in a soci­ety where hope has dwin­dled. The ama­teur­ish pro­duc­tion of the mes­sage sug­gests the group oper­ates clan­des­tine­ly, like­ly with lim­it­ed means. Theo doubts their secre­cy can with­stand scruti­ny from the SSP (the state secu­ri­ty force), fur­ther under­min­ing their poten­tial impact.

As he rereads the demands, Theo con­sid­ers whether he could have influ­enced change dur­ing his time as an advis­er to Xan, the War­den of Eng­land. He con­cludes that even then, he was pow­er­less. The chap­ter delves into Theo’s inter­nal con­flict: while he rec­og­nizes the nobil­i­ty of the Five Fish­es’ cause, he believes their strug­gle is point­less in a world with­out a future due to human infer­til­i­ty (the Omega event). He ques­tions the val­ue of fight­ing for jus­tice in a dying soci­ety where such con­cepts will soon become obso­lete.

Ulti­mate­ly, Theo’s ini­tial sym­pa­thy fades as he con­trasts the group’s ide­al­ism with the resigned sto­icism of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. He views most peo­ple as endur­ing their suf­fer­ing qui­et­ly, find­ing small com­forts and main­tain­ing decen­cy despite their despair. By tear­ing up and dis­card­ing the mes­sage, Theo rejects the Five Fish­es’ call to action, though he briefly envies their pas­sion. The chap­ter ends with his con­flict­ed dis­missal of their “pitiably unar­moured fel­low­ship,” high­light­ing the ten­sion between ide­al­ism and hope­less­ness.