AtDDtA1: 21-24

[Paul Nightingale]

Miles and Lindsay go off to the Fair; yet their first sight of it will not
be as expected. Ch3 offers the first scene to take place away from the
airship, away from the comforting surrounds of that ordered community.
Lindsay reminds Miles, and the reader, that his status "[as] Master-at-Arms"
is dependent on ("necessarily") a pessimistic outlook (21): that Darby and
Chick cannot be trusted unsupervised confirms the importance of the
supervisory figure, so it follows that, stripped of said function, Lindsay
is somewhat adrift. Randolph's words of warning (16) are followed by
Lindsay's instructions to Darby; effectively knowledge of "vicious and
debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary" is
suppressed in favour of a reiteration of power relation aboard the airship.
Away from the airship Lindsay is no longer authoritative: he speaks "perhaps
only to himself", perhaps hoping to convince himself.

Not least, Lindsay and Miles are vulnerable because of their ignorance. The
narrative focuses on their perceptions (22): they hear music and gradually
make out the dance-floor, and various "odors" become more powerful. Hence
the approach to the Fair replicates the airship's descent at the start of
Ch2.

Their experience is of "a separate, lampless world, out beyond some obscure
threshold, with its own economic life, social habits and codes". They find
themselves in an "unmapped periphery", a key wording given the importance of
mapping earlier. All of which emphasises vulnerability and, for Lindsay at
least, a loss of status: the narrative has already juxtaposed Miles' "keen
curiosity" to Lindsay's "peevish stare" (21). Miles, then, is looking ahead,
just as earlier he it was who identified the photographer/naked model--in so
doing, taking the action outside the airship. Lindsay, meanwhile, can only
think of what he has lost. Consequently, Miles can establish himself as
'superior' to Lindsay in the scene with the "sharper" (23-24).

This first phase of Ch3, then, establishes the importance of situated
knowledge, and the relation between that and power/authority: Miles emerges
as knowledgeable, gaining respect of sorts from Lindsay. There is his
"surprised expression", and the pause before "well executed, Blundell" (24)
indicates that Lindsay is struggling to come to terms with what has
happened.