On the ground, Star 475A
Mission time: 14.5 planet days and counting

In which Jela wouldn’t leave ’til he’d dug up that damned skinny stick of a tree.

In Scout’s Progress, one of the chapter headings is an excerpt from Cantra’s Logbook in which she recalls Jela telling her the story of how he found the tree and how he refused to leave the planet without it. The story as she recalls it doesn’t go quite like this, but then stories often change some in the re-telling. (I suspect the embellishment about the tree being so puny Jela could pot it in a left-over ration tin of being Cantra’s own contribution, though; it doesn’t seem characteristic of Jela.)

It would appear that Corporal Kinto, if not a foe, isn’t exactly a friend of Jela’s either. I wonder if there’s something personal behind that or if it’s just interservice rivalry.