Blair Road
In which the entire Council of Bosses meets to discuss the situation.
Most of the bosses we’ve already met get at least a word in at this meeting. Bosses Marriott, Engles and Torin make their first appearances here, though all have been mentioned before.
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Jelaza Kazone
In which a professional has been at work.
Of the bosses whose turfs saw action, we have not previously heard of Boss Threadle. Bosses Conrad and Kalhoon are, of course, the leaders of the Council of Bosses, and Boss Vine holds the territory immediately neighbouring the spaceport. Boss Wentworth was mentioned a few times in Necessity’s Child but I don’t recall if we learned anything particular about him.
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Surebleak
In which Korval acquires a new neighbour.
It’s an evocative name, “World’s End”. There’s the obvious sense in which the place is named, referring to a physical boundary, a place where the world comes to an end, but there are other things it could mean, such as a temporal boundary, a time when a world comes to an end. Sometimes a person’s world can come to an end even though the planet continues untouched. Yulie’s world might have ended when he lost the last of his kin. It might have ended today, if Boss Conrad had been someone other than the person he is.
(And isn’t it interesting how, when he’s talking to Yulie, he’s mostly Pat Rin but sometimes he’s Boss Conrad for a moment or two?)
It’s also interesting to speculate how things might have gone differently if Yulie’s brother hadn’t got himself killed before Boss Conrad showed up, and had been the one handling the negotiation for road access.