In which nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.

I remember being told once by a connoisseur of heartwarming Christmas movies that a truly great uplifting ending must be preceded, for contrast, by a moment in which everything is terrible and it seems nothing will ever be right again. In the present case, this chapter introduces that moment.

(There are such moments in other Liaden novels, as well; the one that springs immediately to mind is Carpe Diem. On the other hand, there isn’t a moment in Balance of Trade that’s even remotely like, which I think is part of why I’ve never cared for Balance of Trade as much as most of the other novels.)

After the despair, I remember being told, comes the first glimmering of new hope, often in the form of one of the characters discovering that there is more in them than anyone had previously had reason to suspect: a bad person discovering a capacity for good, perhaps, or a weak person discovering inner strength. In the present case — well, we’ll see.