In which Miri meets Val Con’s brother.
The story of Val Con’s first meetings with Edger and Handler, back when Val Con was a trainee Scout and Edger had yet to achieve his twelfth shell, is told in the short story “To Cut an Edge”. Selector is also mentioned in that story, though he does not appear. Sheather is not mentioned at all, which likely just means that he was otherwise occupied at the time; though he seems to be the youngest of the Turtles here present, he is old enough and experienced enough to have been included in the market research expedition, and it seems unlikely that he would have been significantly less so a mere (by Turtle standards) twelve years ago.
Although I had remembered the Turtles’ distinctively different idea of what constitutes “a long time”, I had forgotten that this introduction explicitly notes that Edger is considered young by Turtle standards. I’d settled into thinking of him as, if not an elder, at least a person of mature years, but it’s possible that proportionally speaking he’s about the same age (and nearly as reckless) as Val Con and Miri.
It strikes me that, based on this chapter, Edger’s people and Val Con’s have several notable cultural features in common, including clans, bows, and dialects that reflect melant’i. Doubtless the details vary considerably, though.
While Edger is being described by the narrator, it is mentioned that he is fully one-third larger than the svelte and speedy persons the Ambassadorial Clans sent to human worlds. I did not recall that the Clutch produced turtles so much smaller (and thinner?) that they could be better able to interact with humans…perhaps using the same furniture? eating similar food? speaking with less volume/intensity?
As far as I recall, this is the only time in the series the Ambassadorial Clans are ever mentioned, so we don’t have any details about what they do. Maybe there’ll be more in Accepting the Lance, about which nearly the only thing we know for sure is that it is going to have Clutch Turtles in it.