Character · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
Tipid
A Crest and former crawler, author of the Cookbook's fourth-edition notes ('It was me or him, and I chose to save myself'), who pilots the Homecoming Queen — a Long Haul garbage freighter converted to carry fifty thousand former crawlers — into Earth orbit as troopers for the Princess Posse. He knows what the bone key costs, because he once faced a similar choice between saving himself and saving another.
Segment appearances
Arc
'I killed my best friend today' (ch. 16); 'It was me or him' (ch. 57); in orbit, rewatching Carl, Donut and Imani hit the stairwell — 'He didn't have to use the key. Thank the gods' — and flying fifty thousand former crawlers in as troopers (epilogue).