This is a re-read; I read this book years ago, and have forgotten most of it, so here we go again.

I'm already really enjoying seeing the bones of the Company/Union conflict and the way the Union's uniformity makes the viewpoint characters from the EC side of the conflict uncomfortable. Cherryh's writing does great work in not outright othering them; she's on record saying that she doesn't think that the "sides" in this conflict break down well into good/evil buckets, and it shows.