In which Daav has some conversation before dinner.

Petrella has got herself into a position that’s likely to cause trouble and is going to be difficult to get out of even if she decides she wants to: she’s stopped considering the details of the situation and started defining success entirely in terms of whether she gets her own way. She says it’s for the good of the clan, and presents to the delm that it’s in his interests for Er Thom to be obedient, but one may take leave to doubt that version of the story, particularly since the delm himself appears to have no qualms about Er Thom’s obedience.

The epigraph of this chapter suggests a thing which I don’t think is suggested so strongly anywhere else in the series: that there is, or has been within the recorded history of Terran-Liaden relations, an actual planet called Terra. I don’t recall anywhere else in the series where Terra is spoken of except as a used-to-be place.