Kummerog and Bruno Drenderbaum proceed with their space jet to the Bedden system. There they meet the Springer Engereg who still owes Drenderbaum a favor. With his help the two refugees want to use the Camelot recruitment office aboard the BASIS to reach the secret world of the cell activator bearers. Engereg is one of four department heads of the BASIS and responsible for the adventure experience worlds aboard. The other department heads are the Ertruser Rukkus Albasta (security) and two Terrans, Eleonore Bricksen (casino) and William Crimson (Merchandising and guest care). These four people are subordinate to only the mysterious Manager.

On December 1, 1288 NGE the space jet, which now carries the camouflage designation GORDIGAL, arrives on the BASIS about Siftermann III. Drenderbaum, who portrays himself as a Jerôme Bhloppar explains the skin wrapping up him and the unusual appearance of Kummerog with the fact that they are suffering from a disease with which Camelot agents had supposedly infected him and the Cantrell. Therefore, they must get to the world of the immortals, in order to get the necessary treatment.

During their stay aboard the BASIS there are several attacks in the adventure experience worlds of the ship by an unknown assassin against carious groups of guests. This assassin pretends to be late Beausoleil Jean-Michel de Vert Le Petit who had already died in 1277 NGE. He justifies his acts with the fact that the authorities had transformed the BASIS into a sinful sewer. When the Ertruser Albasta is finally able to trap the assassin in a Paratron bubble, it turns out that it is a form energy imitation of the dead man who shortly after dissolves. It is generally supposed that this \"BASIS ghost\" was a syntronic long-term program of the Beausoleil.

On December 20, 1288 NGE – while Drenderbaum in the meantime learns the history of the Cantrell from Kummerog’s skin - the Terrans Andor Felsch and Simon Dury get passage chips to Camelot from the leader of the recruitment office, Olaf Grindgen, after they pass the admission tests. Engereg ensures that the chips are stolen and reprogrammed to the individual data of Kummerog and Drenderbaum. Thereupon the Cantrell kills all the people in the know with the help of a bomb, before he and Drenderbaum leave the BASIS with their space jet. Because it is made to seem that the ghost Jean-Michel de Vert Le Petit is also behind this \"accident\", nobody investigates it too deeply.

Some days previously Gucky is in the Treezan system with the VESTA Cruiser TVK-1 of his GILGAMESCH Module TRAMP. He observes a four hundred fifty meter hedgehog ship, as he searches the fifth planet Zahan, a colonial world of the Apaso-Blues hit with the Tangle radiation. When five ring disk ships of the Raglund Forum try to repulse the intruder, several combat units of the hedgehog ships appear and two of the defenders are destroyed. The remaining three ships flee. The TVK-1 also withdraws and flies to the red giant sun Zustra, where the GILGAMESCH waits.

On December 15, 1288 NGE the RICO reaches the GILGAMESCH with the wreck of the hedgehog ship. From his module ENZA, Myles Kantor begins the examination of the ship. The wreck is filled with a network of compact metal ropes and conglomerates of the most different generators. However, Kantor finds out that all these devices for the production of the Tangle radiation have clearly been destroyed by the crew. In the rear of the ship the scientists can make out an unusual radiation, which emanates from a module. After one unsuccessful attempt they succeed in opening the module. It contains a ten by five by three meter rectangle. When they discover this object, the rectangle sends out a hyperradio impulse. Shortly afterward, one hundred six hundred meter hedgehog ships appear and the GILGAMESCH withdraws.

Some days later the available information is evaluated. It is confirmed that the four hundred fifty meter hedgehog ships are investigation and surveying ships. Their task is to collect information about not only the conditions in the Milky Way, but also about solar systems, the planets as well as their masses and raw material deposits. However, the Galactics themselves and their psyches appear to be of special interest to them. Obviously the strangers were able to find a certain characteristic which seems to be of great importance for them with their previous scans of all intelligent living beings in the Milky Way. It is theorized that it could have something to do with a kind of UBSEF constant.

On December 22, 1288 NGE the GILGAMESCH, begins its journey back to Camelot, while Atlan takes a VESTA Cruiser to fly to the Humanidrom. He intends on mobilizing the Galactics against the invaders.