Elijah Good, the doctor of a small Amish town called "Paradise," contacts Boone and Lili. He theorizes that the recent suicides in Paradise are the result of "Companion Reaction Syndrome," a mental problem caused by the arrival of the Companions. There has been little of the syndrome since the Taelons arrived, but the Amish are sufficiently sheltered that the reaction might have been delayed.
Boone and Lili go to Paradise, which angers the elders of the town, who resent the intrusion of "English." They are present when another suicide is discovered. A man evidently stepped into a freezer and remained there until he died. As they examine his body, a butterfly emerges from his mouth and flies off.
Boone asks Da'an if Taelon experiments are going on in Paradise, and a puzzled Da'an replies that there are not.
Boone and Lili want to conduct an autopsy, but the elders prevent them from doing so. They also refuse to have contact with Elijah or his family. Soon afterwards, Elijah's wife Sarah drinks a toxic solution, but is saved before she dies.
Boone speaks to Elijah's son Jedediah, who tells him of a "metal scarecrow" nearby. The scarecrow turns out to be an alien probe, which evidently absorbed a butterfly and released smaller probes in the shape of butterflies.
Boone tries to contain the probe without alerting Da'an, which would provide the Resistance with invaluable Taelon hardware.
Soon after, butterflies attack the shuttle, but Boone and Lili manage to bring them back to the probe, where Boone skrills them and shuts down the probe with the melted probe remnents. The Resistance takes the probe, now evidently dead, off to a secret location.
