The Migrant Fleet has little economic base, operating in a state of perpetual hand-to-mouth. While quarian ships include light manufacturing and assembly plants, they lack heavy industries such as refining and shipbuilding. The fleet has tankers for water purification and oxygen cracking, but the space-intensive nature of agriculture limits food production. A single disaster could destroy the fragile balance.

As from a tree we sundrie times espie / A twissell grow by Nature's subtile might / And beeing two, for cause they grow so nie / For one are tane, and so appeare in sight;

Crossing the river got him beyond his old nemesis' sheriffdom and into the territory of a more liberal authority.

Mrs. Michael turned out to be a ravenous, fast-fading woman in a slashed skirt and a low blouse over an unappetising chest. While her husband did things in his shed, where he appeared to live, Pym inexpertly mixed the Yorkshire pudding and fought off her embraces...