Lufkit
Epling Street
In which Sheather pays a visit to the home of an Elder.
Poor Sheather. He’s trying so hard to be inconspicuous and unthreatening, but he doesn’t quite grasp the inherent handicaps he’s carrying in those areas in the estimation of Terrans.
In which a Turtle on urgent business is no trifling thing.
Edger demonstrates that, while the Clutch are not inclined to rush into anything, they’re capable of acting rapidly and decisively when the situation calls for it. And that, if they’re slow to come to a conclusion, that just means that they’ve given it a lot of thought, not that they’re stupid.
Every time we get a mention of Val Con’s minor telekinetic ability, I go back and check the chapter near the end of Mouse and Dragon, and every time the chapter stubbornly continues to be about young Pat Rin being discovered to possess a minor telekinetic ability. I don’t see how that could be the result of a confusion, so I suppose we must take it that they both possess a minor telekinetic ability. I still wonder what happened to Pat Rin’s.
I don’t believe a word of the stuff about electron substitution as a basis for Val Con’s enhanced psychic abilities, by the way, but it’s part of a grand tradition in space opera of using post-Newtonian physics as a handwave for all kinds of entertaining nonsense and I’m prepared to run with it. (Since I’ve raised the subject, though, I’d like to take this opportunity to recommend the essay on What Quantum Physics Is Not from Chad Orzel’s book How to Explain Physics to Your Dog, which is educational, clearly written, and features an evil mirror-universe squirrel with a goatee.)
In which several people are given things to think on.
Miri and Val Con are clear of Lufkit, but they’re not clear of trouble yet. Justin Hostro is sending people after them —
— I find myself wondering how he was able to discover their destination, when so far the name of Volmer has been spoken only in the hearing of Turtles. Perhaps Watcher mentioned it while he was in Xavier Ing’s custody, though that seems unlikely; a more plausible possibility is that the process of setting the ship for the journey included filing a destination with local traffic control —
— and near the end of the chapter we’re introduced to a new group of people, who act as a reminder that there are other dangers in the wide universe, which Miri and Val Con might now be heading toward.
In which Miri and Val Con discuss weapons.
At first it seemed like a quick turnaround that, less than a day after Miri tried to ditch the madman, it’s her reassuring him that he’s not a danger to her. But there was that demonstration, after she tried to ditch him, of how much importance he places on her survival, and even before that it wasn’t really what she was concerned about. Even when she admitted to being afraid, she made the point that it wasn’t Val Con himself she was afraid of. And I think, on reflection, that when she was bothered by his first demonstration of the Loop’s capabilities, what bothered her wasn’t just the apparent calmness with which he was able to discuss her death, but the calmness with which he was able to discuss his own.
On an entirely different note, I find myself wondering whether Professor Thos. Swift, author of the Young Person’s Book of Space Drives, was a member of the same faculty as the originator of the Antonio Smith Method.
In which He Who Watches has an unpleasant day.
This chapter shows very clearly how much Val Con has come to care for Miri, even in the short time they’ve known each other. It also gives some indication how much she’s come to care for him, although she’s more reluctant to bring it out where people can see it, or to trust it (and who can blame her?).
Edger’s relation to Watcher, we learn, is that he is the brother of his mother’s sister. Which tells us something about the Clutch’s kinship system, because that’s a degree more specificity than would be necessary or meaningful among humans.