On the ground
Faldaiza Port
In which you gotta know when to walk away, know when to run.
Well. This is getting quite exciting, isn’t it?
The name of Dulsey crops up for the first and not the last time.
I’m trying to remember if we see the gambler again; I have a kind of feeling we do, but it’s hard to be sure without a name to latch onto, and the situation in which we last see her in this chapter could go either way. I don’t have the same kind of feeling about the two cops, so it’s nice that they got to have so much personality in such a small appearance.
The body count is already heading towards the neighbourhood of good opera (for some definitions of “good”).
Jela clearly has friends, witness the gambler and the two cops. Cantra is too prickly for much in the way of friends; she values her solo status.
The tree appears to be having a good time. Does it pattern these shenanigans as floating-out-to-sea on the homeworld?
A particular kind of friendship, though, it seems to me. They know each other to say hello to, and to be willing to offer assistance when there’s trouble brewing, but not so close apparently that they see any need to know each other’s names.
Yes, we see the (red-haired) Faldazia gambler again, in Crysal Dragon, chapter 32. She calls herself “gambler, if you will, captain, or runner with luck”
Here’s that pesky balance of debt in interpersonal relationships again, moving Cantra to return to The Alcoves even though she’d rather not. Here, we learn that Cantra is a professional, with a professional’s eye and everything – she has the tools and she knows how to use them. And again, here is Cantra covering Jela’s return for the tree because she feels she owes him, he having done the same for her aborted trip to retrieve her kit from her hotel. After which, she heads off for the port, relieved.
The gambler: Such an unexceptional introduction for a character that will assume more importance much later on in the timeline.