Crystal Soldier – Chapter 3

On the ground, Star 475A
Mission time: 14 planet days and counting

In which Jela makes a friend and a promise.

Jela has found the last Tree. It’s an unpreposessing thing at this point, shorter than he is. He gives it water. It gives him food. (And the experienced visitor to the Liaden Universe does not discount it as mere coincidence that, after eating the seed pod it drops, he promptly falls into a hibernation that keeps him until his rescue arrives.) Speaking of the seed pod, though, it’s larger than I expected: “fist-sized”, it says, and I’d always pictured them as smaller. Perhaps they are, usually.

Reading this chapter four days after “Dragon Tide” means that the dream Jela has in the Tree’s shadow is considerably less mysterious than it might otherwise have been.

This chapter begins and ends with two interestingly-written moments: at the beginning, there’s the description of Jela’s emotion when he discovers that there is, after all, a survivor; at the end, the suspenseful wait to find out whether the approaching flyer is friend or foe, which is resolved when Jela recognises the man who jumps out — and completely dispelled when the man loses his footing and swears.

8 thoughts on “Crystal Soldier – Chapter 3

  1. H in W

    The tree misses its “branches with wings” (for which it clearly views Jela as an acceptable substitute). And Jela’s partial to dancers and pilots, “people who knew how to move, and when”. Which Clan Korval still honours, obsessively.

    The tree feeds its first person. I wonder how many times I’ve read of the tree giving someone in Clan Korval a seed pod? I like that Jela was worried that he might be hallucinating and about to eat a pebble.

  2. Jelala Alone

    I always pictured the seed pods smaller, too. More like walnuts.

    I had not realized Tree put Jela into a state of dormancy. Hibernating would certainly preserve his life until help arrives.

    Duty has been a strong theme in these first three chapters, and it continues throughout the Migration Duology. However, in sequels, duty is rarely mentioned, relative to these books.

    Reminiscent of Nelirikk in Plan B — when Beautiful and Val Con discuss Jela — the small soldier who single-handedly battled and defeated the squad from Recon.

    The special gift Nelirikk creates for Captain Robertson is very similar to the surprise Jela found on his bed.

  3. Paul A. Post author

    “However, in sequels, duty is rarely mentioned, relative to these books.”

    Do you think so?

  4. Jelala Alone

    Yes, feels that way to me. I just ran a search in my e-books. The word “duty” showed up 150 times across Crystal Variation trilogy (Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, Balance of Trade). It shows up 124 times in the 3 books of the Dragon Variation. It occurs only 23 times in Dragon Ship.

  5. Jelala Alone

    By the way, I was thinking the other day that Pat Rin has never been given a seed pod, nor had a chat with Tree, in any books. Yes?

    Nor has Nova been portrayed talking with Tree, and eating a seed, but she did sit under Tree with Syl Vor in NC, and she did teach him to thank Tree for its gifts, so presumably she has experienced Tree firsthand.

  6. Paul A. Post author

    This accords with my memory, for what it’s worth. I also don’t think I remember any depictions of Kareen interacting directly with the Tree.

  7. Ed8r

    I was struck by two references in this chapter:
    1) flying things . . . vanquished by some short-term calamity beyond the thought of trees
    2) this was a template recently used, in spite of its age

    So the dragons were killed off by…what? We don’t know from this whether it was a natural calamity or an attack by sheriekas do we? AND why was the sound of an aircraft (recently used = Jela’s ship) also a a template that was somewhere in the Tree’s past (its age)?

  8. Ed8r

    It wasn’t until I read Paul’s chapter summary that I realized the part about the Tree putting Jela into some form of hibernation. It wasn’t merely that Jela was content that he’d done his best and therefore could let his guard down and sleep deeply, but that the pod the little Tree grew FOR HIM actually slowed all his systems down enough that he was still alive when rescue arrived.

    However, our chapter headings do not seem to account for all the time involved, do they? Chapter 2 said 9 days, but surely it then took him some time to walk the distance (helpfully estimated by Othin at 294 miles, or so) from the first tree he found at 9 days (which was actually way up the course of the dry river, remember that he found himself in a side canyon at first) down the dry river to the last Tree at 14 days. So he walked 294 miles in 5 days. That’s some fast walking!

    This chapter says 14 days and counting . . . does “and counting” indicate that we may be missing a good deal of time while Jela hibernated? Because the next chapter is identified as 14.5 days, so he was found and medicated and fed and was told to board all within half a day.

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