In which Anne and Er Thom each separately look forward to life becoming more simple.

We’ve encountered Shan el’Thrassin before, briefly; Jethri reads about him in Balance of Trade.

There’s a nice bit of multiple-purpose exposition in this chapter, when Anne is reflecting on her childhood. It serves its overt purpose of elucidating how Anne handles her own child, but it also casually slips in the fact that she comes of a family that produces pilots, which will be important later.