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.