(Historical Notes: I know I keep repeating myself, but I cannot stress enough just how badly this story needed to see more of Vance’s decent into crazy actually HAPPENING instead of just having Eric tell us that it’s bad.  I think Past Me might have been worried that the plot was starting to drag and tried to speed thing up, but the end result FEELS even more draggy despite having fewer pages, since those pages are just these two standing around talking for page after page after page.  Even if there weren’t legitimate plot reasons why we need to see more of what’s Vance is doing, this part would STILL need some kind of cutaway to break up the pacing.  But then, I’ve been saying that for, like a dozen pages now, and not breaking THAT up would be pretty hypocritical of me.  The bit about Eric having an “honest face” is a direct reference to The Ribos Operation, which means this must have been right around the point that either I let the cat out of the bag or somebody guessed it.  I actually can’t remember right now.)