Bechimo
In which the Captain speaks to her guests.
I like how the Pathfinders remain cautious of Theo and the crew; it makes sense for their position, but an author might have fallen into the trap of forgetting that and letting them trust easily just because we know the crew to be trustworthy.
A moment of protocol that surprises the Pathfinders: Theo ringing the doorbell to request admittance to their suite. They’re expecting that, as Captain, she’ll just come straight in.
Stost compares Theo to a “shibjela”, which when we encountered the term before was a weapon made of flexible wire carried by Yxtrang of Jela’s Own Troop. I wouldn’t have thought that Stost, a pre-Migration X Strain soldier who is not, as far as we know, affiliated with that Troop, would be familiar with the term. Perhaps he is thinking instead of Jela’s shib, the original weapon that the shibjela was named after — the analogy would still work in that case, perhaps even better than in the other. Even if so, I’m surprised he’d think of it by that name; it would suggest that Jela’s legend has spread through the soldiery farther and sooner than I’d previously realized.
Some explanation, at last, of how some ships are arriving so much later than the rest of the Migration. (Even if it is, as Joyita says, only a theory.) And an explicit statement that not all the migrants arrived in the new universe in the same place.
The Pathfinders, being observant, notice that Joyita and Theo are improving their speech, and that Clarence isn’t. I wonder if they’ll make anything of that. (Probably not the right thing, still lacking that key detail about Joyita.)
I had worried earlier about whether the Pathfinders would hear of the Yxtrang and think that here was the Troop they were bound to. Theo, being a daughter of scholars, approaches the issue by giving the Pathfinders all the information she can and letting them decide for themselves whether the Yxtrang still qualify as Troop. Which is a mature and adult approach, and one I hope I would have considered in her place.
Being an inveterate researcher myself, it did not even occur to me that Theo’s expectation that correct information will bring the Pathfinders to a proper decision was based solely upon the scholarly academic culture of her homeworld. I myself tend to think that way also, that if I can just provide someone with the correct information, that the facts will accomplish a persuasion to the right mindset. Ha! This happens to be true (mostly) in my family, but seems to be rather rare in general.