Summary

Chapter 17 (Third person, past tense, Nell’s perspective) – Nell and Fen’s sleep is interrupted by sudden loud shouts and cries from the villagers. When they investigate, they find the village in a wild, hysterical uproar. As she and Fen fight their way through the crowd to get to the event at the heart of the excitement, Nell hopes that she isn’t going to encounter another dead baby. Instead, she finds Malun cradling a man in her arms: the whipped, scarred, and fainting Xambun, who (as Nell wrote in her note to Bankson) has returned.

Chapter 18 (Third person, past tense, Nell’s perspective) – On the third night of celebrations marking Xambun’s return Fen, who has been participating as though he was himself a member of the tribe (including taking their hallucinogens) interrupts Nell at her work, rants about how her typewriter...