Four-Day Planet · Chapter
Aboard the Javelin explained
Tom Kivelson and his father retrieve Glenn Murell from the hospital and inspect the tallow-wax stores.
What happens
Tom Kivelson and his father retrieve Glenn Murell from the hospital and inspect the tallow-wax stores. Murell announces a price of eighty centisols per pound for wax, challenging the monopoly. They board the Javelin, which submerges and then takes flight. The crew prepares for the hunt, and Murell learns about the ship's technology.
Themes in this chapter
Economic Exploitation and Monopoly
Murell's offer of 80 centisols per pound challenges Belsher's monopoly, aiming to break exploitative pricing.
Survival and Resilience
The crew prepares for the dangerous hunt despite threats from Ravick's forces and the harsh environment.
Characters to notice
- Glenn Murell
Recovered from poisoning, inspects wax, announces new price, and boards the Javelin.
- Tom Kivelson
Narrator; accompanies father to retrieve Murell and boards the Javelin.
- Joe Kivelson
Coordinates with Murell and crew; discusses crew shortage.
- Oscar Fujisawa
Slept at Times Building; returns to Pequod when safe.
- Ramón Llewellyn
Mate of the Javelin; reports on crew and ship readiness.
- Al Devis
Injured his back lifting a power-unit cartridge; absent from the hunt.
Key passages
“Eighty centisols a pound. Seventy-five’s the Kapstaad price, regardless of what you people here have been getting from that crook of a Belsher. We’ll have to go far enough beyond that to make him have to run like blazes to catch up. You can put it in the Times that the day of monopolistic marketing on Fenris is over.”
Murell announces a price of 80 centisols per pound, exceeding the Kapstaad price to undercut Belsher's monopoly and signal the end of monopolistic control.
Murell declares his intention to break the monopoly on wax trading.
“I was surely old enough to stop expecting miracles.”
Tom reflects on Bish Ware's relapse into drinking, accepting that recovery is a gradual process.
Tom's resignation regarding Bish's struggle with alcoholism.