Chris calls the noise and raucousness of Livewell Street "'...a sty...'" and contrasts it with his choth whereas Tabitha calls the same scene fun and insists that the Founder and his followers wanted nothing but "'...unmolested elbow room.'" (p. 501) They eat mixed human and Ythrian food in the Phoenix House and drink in the Nest. Tabitha hopes to meet Draun, her chothmate, business partner and superior in the guard. (She attended the conference as his aide.) Instead, they meet Chris's chothmate, Vodan, accompanied by Quenna, a permanently in-heat Ythrian female. He will report to his ship within hours.
Left alone with Tabitha, Chris struggles to articulate his double standard about women. As she expresses it for him, some "bird men," male human choth members, are:
"'...promiscuous as kakkelaks provided they don't much respect their partners, but hardly able to touch birds of the opposite sex.'" (p. 509)
She leaves, he winds up in bed with a casual acquaintance and force screens enclose the city as war is declared.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Poor Quenna, an outcast from Yhtrian society. The Ythrians had been influenced enough by humans that they did not kill her in childhood, but not enough that they were willing to help her with the expensive care needed to correct her problem.
Ad astra! Sean
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