An Unkindness of Ghosts

Theo Smith describes a meeting with his uncle, the Lieutenant, from his point of view. The Lieutenant fully expects that he will soon take Nicolaeus’s seat as sovereign. Lieutenant warns Theo away from keeping Aster’s company. In the past, Theo’s father despised Theo for his “sissiness,” but Theo had always been conciliatory in a way that Theo has never trusted. After the meeting, he meets with Aster after her field work is done. They have a meal together in the barn, and the two share intimacies of a delicate, romantic, but removed nature, such as performing verbal “anatomical recitations” (107). Afterwards, Theo whips himself in penance.

Back in Aster’s point of view, the next day Theo radios Aster to let her know in advance that Sovereign Nicolaeus is dead and that the Lieutenant will succeed him. Theo wants to know if Aster had anything to do with Nicolaeus’s death, to which Aster responds that she did not. He asks her to meet him for the autopsy the following morning and warns her to be careful of guards looking to exploit the break in leadership to perform random violence. 

On her way to see Lieutenant, Aster meets a lost upper deck woman in the fields who demands to be shown the way back.