Bechimo
Pathfinders’ Temporary Base

In which there’s more than one way to get an education.

If the occasion from which Hevelin is recalling Clarence’s voice occurred in one of the previous novels, I have failed to find it in a text search. No reason it couldn’t have happened off-page, of course.

I think this is the first time norbears’ hissing defence has been mentioned; I haven’t found any earlier reference to it, even in “Out of True” when the norbears are found living on a planet with hostile predators (although maybe they were using it off-page and that’s how they survived long enough to be found). “Out of True” does have a mention of an unsubstantiated rumour that norbears tend to be found in the vicinity of Old Tech caches, which seems like something it would be a good idea not to mention to the pathfinders in case they see it as corroboration of their fears.

If there had still been any reason to hide his status, Joyita would have been lucky that Chernak chose to phrase her question as, “Are you the ship?”, which he isn’t — now. I wonder how he would have answered before he became his own person.

It hadn’t occurred to me that our heroes might not know what Chernak and Stost are concerned about. Having read the Crystal books, it sometimes slips my mind that I know a lot of things about the old universe that they don’t.