Billups's mother tries to trick him into taking the throne of Hysperia, while Boimler and Mariner crash-land with the malevolent computer AGIMUS.
Queen Paolana of Hysperia, a colony founded by Renaissance fair enthusiasts, asks her son, chief engineer Andarithio Billups, to fix her ship's engines. Billups is wary because she keeps trying to get him to lose his virginity, which under Hysperian tradition would make him king. When she appears to die, he prepares to take the throne, but the death is a ruse and Rutherford intervenes in time.
Boimler is pulled off an away mission to help Mariner escort AGIMUS, a malevolent artificial intelligence, to Earth. Their ship crashes on a desert world, where AGIMUS tries to turn them against each other by revealing that Mariner had Boimler reassigned. Boimler tricks the computer into sending a distress call, and Mariner apologizes.