In which a pilot dreams of Moonhawk.
After the thought I had (and expressed rather incoherently, I fear) yesterday, about the magics of this setting perhaps having technological underpinnings, it’s interesting to follow up immediately with a story in which (I hadn’t remembered) the macguffin is part of the technological underpinning of the witches of Sintia.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Sintia, and Moonhawk. Some things have changed: Sintia is now a technological society with its own spaceport and trade with other planets. (Fiona, our narrator, neglects to name the city that hosts the spaceport, presumably because as a Spacer she’s not much interested in local geography.) Some things are not as much changed as one might like: the representatives of the Temple are still, or again, having the same problem with their priorities that Lute called out Lady Rowan on in “Moon’s Honor”. The thing that they consider most important about the theft from the Temple is not the harm that might have been done, but the affront to the Temple’s self-importance.
There’s no Lute to call them out on it, however; this Moonhawk is still young, and does not appear to have met her Lute yet.
Nobody says it out loud — it would probably have been distinctly unwise to say it out loud — but I reckon that Cly Nelbern’s desire for an escort is less about physical protection than about entangling the pilots so that if she goes down, they go down too. And I reckon that Fiona has realised the same thing by the time she asks if Nelbern will be wanting an escort again to her second meeting.
The story is marked with the year 1375; on internal evidence, this has to be the year in which the main events of the story occurred, not the years-later time at which the narrator is telling the story. Fair enough, since that’s the same logic on which I’ve placed the story here in the chronological order.
Tomorrow: “Moonphase”
Your starting paragraph, about referencing “technological underpinnings” yesterday, puzzled me. The last post that I found, in the previous month, was still in Mouse and Dragon.
This leads me to wonder more strongly — am I, in my inexperience, missing a bunch of posts? I have been using the links near the bottom, going up month to month, then going from bottom to top within the file. I’m so enjoying these. I hate to think I’m missing a lot.
By the way, you mention in one post “not having an audience”. I’m a member of some Facebook pages that deal with the Universe. Have links to your immensely interesting project been posted lately perhaps to some of those pages? I believe many of the readers of these pages would find this as fascinating as I have.
It sounds like where you’re going wrong is that you’ve assumed the monthly archives show all the month’s posts on a single page. This is not the case; like the main blog view, they show only ten posts per page, and to get to the beginning of the month you have to go to the bottom of the page and click on the “Older Posts” link until you get to a page that doesn’t have an “Older Posts” link.
I’ve figured out a more convenient way to read the old posts in order (and one that shouldn’t miss anything), and written about it here where hopefully it will catch the attention of anyone else with the same problem.
I’m not on Facebook myself, so it hadn’t previously occurred to me to look in that direction for an audience.
@Cly Nelbern
Who is she working for? I remember her threatening with a deadly organization in the background. DoI comes to mind. Especially since the DoI has acquired those Dramliz-Killers which seem to be known to Moonhawk. It also might be the Organization that is masterminding the DoI. Does anybody have any idea?
@Fiona
I’d like to hear what became of her, her sister and their husband and their family. Will they meet Priscilla again? Are they still running or has the command worn off finally? I do like Fiona 🙂
Othin, I had found myself wondering if…rather than the DOI…it was the Lyre Institute who had commissioned Nelbern. They are all about manipulating genes to produce designed “humans,” such as aelantaza. I can see them wanting to be able to produce their own specially designed dramliz also.
On this reread, I have no new observations. I still think more of the Lyre Institute than the DOI here. It would be just like them to think that they could “create” witches. Apparently, Moonhawk disagrees.
But Paul, I don’t follow about the technology being new to the planet Sintia. I had merely assumed, in the previous stories, that Lute and Moonhawk were in rural areas that had no access to the spaceport…or even did not know of it/?
If there was a spaceport in the previous storries Lute might be the one not knowing (although it seems unlikly that his wandering feet didn’t enccounter anyone telling him aobut it), but the elite tempel surely would – and that would include Moonhawk.
Therefore I believe Paul had it right, back than there was no port. But between now and then might be several centuries.