Killer chapter. Almost from the beginning, I had a question nagging at me. First from Garaaf:

These natives were different. He’d never seen them on the ring, so they meant something more to the Hunters than just food. They made things, existed in some kind of a transactional relationship with their cybernetically monstrous overlords… even if that transaction did sometimes involve being slaughtered. Could it be that the Hunters valued them in some way? Not as people, obviously—Hunters barely valued themselves, let alone so-called prey—but as a resource…

Then just a few paragraphs away, the AoA:

One of the Sport Worlds—the most industrially productive of them, no less, with a whole captive slave-species—was under attack, and the fur-faces of all creatures were leading the charge. On the ground, they were spreading out from an expanding series of jump portals, taking and holding ground and fighting almost like deathworlders.

What exactly are the Hunters getting out of exploiting this planet? Garaaf didn't see them on the Ring (which strongly implies they only exist here on this specific planet), and the whole surface of the planet is contaminated by the intense industrial activity. And they have apparently undergone artificial selection, to partially withstand the contamination. So...what are they building? It seems like it must be strategically important in some way, despite the "Sport World" designation. And is this "transactional relationship" somehow related to the religion of the Penitent? Like, an Original Sin? It already sounds very much like some of the more extreme sects of Catholicism. (I wonder if they practice flagellation or similar. Maybe Uku is wearing a hair-shirt....)

And then there's this, from Uku two sections later:

Uku woke from restless, bizarre dreams of the Before. Normally, those dreams brought her a measure of peace and comfort. She knew so much about the Before, having memorized everything the Chant said about it, that her imagination always fancied it could bring it to life in the dark behind her eyes.

Maybe it was a delusion. But normally, she found those dreams restful, but this time when she imagined the fine brick buildings and majestic, clean steam-powered tools her ancestors had made for themselves rather than the poisonous engines the Punishment forced upon them… this time she had seen strange figures in sealed clothing prowl the streets with weapons, and the Punishers clinging to the sky above.

So....this had been an industrial age species at one point, and it's not clear how much they've regressed. This seems somewhat distinct from the situation with the hunter-gatherer Ten'Gewek, who were cousins of the more advanced species being culled by the Hierarchy. Is this species another victim of Hierarchy, or did the Discarded do this on their own, without prompting?

The next chapter should be a real doozy.