The novel opens with a meeting between a visitor named Colonel Joll and the narrator who remains nameless but is referred to as the settlement’s magistrate. Colonel Joll has shown up to announce his authority under newly declared emergency laws. The two men discuss the purportedly ominous threat posed by so-called barbarians—the Indigenous nomadic peoples—outside the gates of the frontier settlement. The settlement is unnamed, and it is an outpost of a likewise unnamed imperial entity, referred to as the Empire. The two continue their discussion, which generally takes the form of small talk, but the Magistrate is suspicious of the colonel’s presence.

The next day, at the behest of Colonel Joll, his civil guard regiment of the Third Bureau has taken prisoners: an old man and a boy, whom they found outside the gates of the settlement. The magistrate notifies Colonel Joll that there is very little crime in the settlement; therefore, there is no need for a typical prison. Colonel Joll intimates that he will need to interrogate the two suspects under the supposition that they may have information pertaining to the Indigenous nomadic groups. When the Magistrate speaks to the boy, he notices that the boy’s face is bruised, and it appears he has already been beaten.