# Aboard the Javelin explained — Four-Day Planet

> Chapter companion for Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper.

## 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.

## Character check-ins

### 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 lines

> 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._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/four_day_planet_se/chapters/aboard-the-javelin
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/four_day_planet_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/four_day_planet_se/chapters