In which several characters give thought to the future.
One of the things I remember thinking the first time I read this chapter was, “Well, if that’s how they’re going to make up the numbers, I guess this means Rys isn’t going to be staying with the kompani permanently.”
The child Droi sets out to get on behalf of the kompani is one possible candidate for the title character, although not the only one. The title might not even be referring to a character at all; after all there is an old saying which holds that Invention is Necessity’s child, and we’ve already seen several characters being inventive in response to various necessities.
The scene with Nova and Mike at the beginning of the chapter is another of the ones that makes me wonder what I’d see if I owned a pair of shipping goggles.
I want answers about the Bedel! This particular group has not been on Surebleak all that long if it’s only been since the contractor pulled out, so where were they before?
Is this the only kompani, or are they spread throughout the galaxy/universe?
If Droi had to go “outside” for a child, does that mean that they have the means to track their own DNA and the knowledge to determine when there might be too much inbreeding? Or is it just the fact that their own couples do not seem to be fertile any longer? Do “we” (as a civilization, not as readers) have that same knowledge?
SPOILERS
Could this group of Bedel, as they were 500 (?) years ago, have been the intended passengers for Bechimo? (That question is not mine, I think I might have read it among PA’s comments for a different book)
If we have Uncle’s youngest “sister” acknowledged as one of the Bedel in Neogenesis, does that suggest they are *all* descended from him? Or all descended from Batchers he rescued from the old Universe? What?