Though earlier in the story the Slug suggests that the Tines may be of a species similar or the same as the Blabber and a brief description of their speculations on the beings, toward the bottom of page 47 begins to verify these suspicions. As Hamid and the Blab are freefalling on the agrav carpets, Ham notices a hissing sound like the one that woke him in the middle of the night before his first interaction with the insane Tines. The sound was coming from all of the killers above. In an attempt to reach and maybe comfort Blab, Ham reaches for her and is met with the teeth of a massively puffed out creature with death in the eyes. Hamid jumps back in pain and fright while the jumbofied pet shrills at the killers and goes limp.
This descriptive interaction with the callback to the sound heard the night of the phone call connects all the dots when it is revealed who Tines is, which is the remaining five personalities of a hive-mind being that Blab is part of. The scene ties the entire story before this point to the rest of the plot from here forward. Other than the initial sight of the five beings, including Blab, there was no more blatant connection than hearing the hissing sound before their “abduction”.
I feel that your explanation of how the scene on page 47 ties together various elements of the story and connects past events with the present is well articulated. How do you think the revelation of Tines as a hive-mind being impacts Hamid’s understanding of the Blabber and his relationships with other characters, particularly Ravna and Tines, as the story progresses?
When the blab went full monster mode it was genuinely a little scary to me. Like we knew it was powerful from the opening scene but when it lets loose its really unsettling.