The boat aims not towards the city’s harbor but a dark grove of trees, keeping them out of sight. Once they arrive on shore, the whittler reminds S. that he only has two hours to be on land and then must come back to the boat. A man in the trees who emerged after they shored introduces himself as Osfour. He is said to be wearing a checheya which is a soft black fez (a short cylinder hat made of kilim fabric), a matching kaftan (a robe or tunic), trousers and flat, thin sandals. From the attire he wore, the place that S. shored might be somewhere in Northern Africa.

In the margins, Jen brings up a photo of the board of directors of Arp Syndikat in 1948. She points out that Gernot Klein looks like the older and fatter version of Wechsler and then speculates whether he is Nemec in chapter 8.

In the footnote, FXC talks about the multiple avian images in Ship of Theseus suggesting that Straka was an avid bird-watcher. She then mentions a book (P.T. Russell’s Compendium of Birds) but gives wrong information about the year that Jen notices.

In the margins, Jen learns about “Nihilist Cipher” and also discovers that there are multiple years in the chapter 6 footnotes. They suspect that the footnotes have codes that use the latter two digits of the years mentioned.