A group of miners, including a man named Hillalum, travels to Babylon, where they see a stone tower so wide and large that it extends upwards for miles. The group will be taking a cart of bricks to the top of the tower so as to construct it to be even higher. Once they reach Babylon, they realize that a festival has just happened and people are celebrating. They discuss how few men grieve when a worker falls off the tower, but many grieve when a trowel falls, because that means that less work can be done. Carts with new materials only go up every few months. Hillalum and the others travel to the top of the tower alongside animals to be sacrificed to Yahweh; this is a multi-day journey. Along the way, they find that people who live in the tower have modified it to fit human life. Miners who work at the top have started families and built gardens. Rooms are carved into the towers' walls. A man of the tower, Kudda, shows Hillalum the beauty of the sun when seen from so high. They eventually reach an altitude where they can see the stars from up close; sunlight seems to be coming from below them. Above the tower is a large expanse of whiteness that many workers believe to be the barrier between humanity and heaven. However, some fear that it is the underside of a reservoir. Many people remember the first flood sent by a higher power called Yahweh years earlier and fear a second. Generally, workers believe that, if Yahweh has not struck the tower down, then He is not opposed to it--though there is no way to confirm one way or the other. The men begin carving into the whiteness and create special chambers so that water can be cordoned off if it turns out that a reservoir is behind the barrier. One day, Hillalum is mining through the barrier and it turns out to be blocking water. Water begins to flow in earnest, but due to the cordoning system, he cannot get back to his friends; if he open the stone to save his own life, he will doom humanity. He begins to swim through the water and eventually sees a bright light, which he believes is heaven. He eagerly approaches it and ends up in a desert. Hillalum comes upon a traveling caravan; they tell him they are headed to Erech, which is near Babylon. Hillalum realizes that humanity will never reach heaven. God has created the Earth so that it is a sort of repeating loop. Hillalum vows to go back to Babylon and tell people the truth about the formation of the Earth.