Spiral Dance
Taliofi
In which several people are not what they appear to be.
There are, of course, no Liadens in this setting, but there are people who possess attributes that will come to be considered Liaden. A few chapters ago, it was mentioned in passing that a golden-tan skin tone is a high class marker, and here we learn likewise about the very Liaden-like manners of a person with that skin tone. The word used is “Inside”, which I suspect refers to the inner reaches of the galaxy, placing high society socially and geographically at the opposite pole from the Rim.
And Rint dea’Sord, the first person we’ve yet encountered who combines a Liaden-like skin tone with Liaden-like manners and a Liaden-like name, is a fraud. The skin tone is make-up, the manners are self-taught and wouldn’t stand up in the actual Inside, his pretty Inside accent disappears in emotional extremity, and all things considered I wouldn’t lay money on the name being authentic either. He’s putting on high-society manners for the advantage it gives him against his fellow low-lifes.
Meanwhile Cantra, it seems, is doing the inverse. She was brought up with high-class manners, which she doesn’t use, preferring to present herself as a Rimmer like Garen. In retrospect, there were several moments foreshadowing this, including the moment a few chapters ago where Dulsey bows to her and she almost replies with the corresponding bow instead of a Rimmer’s nod, and the way her reminisces of Garen have always mentioned Rimmers in a way that leaves it ambiguous about whether she counts herself as one. And the fact that she was the subject of the previous mention of golden-tan skin tone as a high class marker.
Also, she’s an aelantaza — whatever that is, the few details we’ve got so far sound worrying — and her “first aid kit” is, judging by Jela’s reaction, sheriekas tech.
I dunno. I think an aelantaza is a genetically engineered (yet human) assassin.
By the way, good point about how Cantra takes on the rough-and-ready rimmer persona. Very true. Her allegiance was to Garen, who saved her life. Garen was a rimmer.
I think “genetically engineered (yet human) assassin” is plenty worrying enough to be going on with. 🙂
And what have we learned here?
Cantra has a plan. She has superior training, and she is an aelantaza. But Rint dea’Sorda, fake that he is, nevertheless is a very sharp customer and has maneuvered her into a very nasty trap.
Jela has connected a string of facts and made a decision. He and the tree agree: they fight the sheriekas.
Dulsey’s plans obviously went badly awry, and she is in a bad way. Nope, it’s not good to be a batcher.
And Jela shows up in the nick of time and saves the day. Cue cheerleaders: “Jela, Jela, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can!” And, while I’m sure that Cantra is very glad to be alive, paid, and headed offworld fast, I’m betting she’s not a happy camper, and has more than a few questions for Jela. Me, too. How did he escape being observed by dea’Sorda’s watchers?
And one more thing: Cantra says that she is a “natural human”. Found on page 151 of the trade paper edition in chapter 15. “She also knew that an aid-and-abet charge against a natural human, which in unlikely fact she happened to be…” But we don’t know exactly how a natural human is defined. Is a Soldier a natural human? Is a Soldier Strain equivalent to an Aelantazan Line? Both the Soldiers and the Aelantaza were designed with human care. so what separates the Aelantaza or the Soldiers from the batch-grown? All three are designed, yes? Are the batch-grown cloned?
I think, toward the end of Crystal Dragon, in either Wellik’s troop or Jela’s (if they are not the same folks), the group is described as containing Xs, Ys, Ms, and natural humans. So whatever Cantra is considered, the (n)strain soldiers are not “natural humans”.
Yes, that’s Chapter 27 of Crystal Dragon, describing the crew that helped Jela bring Quick-Passage-to-be to Solcintra. So a strain soldier isn’t a natural human. But Cantra is, as she says herself (and Rint dea’Sord, who knows she’s an aelantaza, says so too). Perhaps the first aelantaza were natural humans with modifications, rather than being designed from the ground up. And I can see how the directors might choose to leave the aelantaza the option of natural reproduction, because what natural reproduction does is mix traits and bring new things to the fore, which could produce desirable new skills or enhancements of old ones (and if a line starts showing an increase in undesirable traits instead, that’s what a line edit is for).
But then, is a “line edit” performed on the remaining genetic material so that the reproductions then do, or do not, include some trait or other AND meanwhile, an assassin is sent out to eliminate all instances of the previous “line”? Is that why Cantra survived a “line edit”?
And…jumping way forward in the series…is this what the Tanyalyre and now the Lyre Institute do: produce genetically modified humans who are conditioned by training to be absolutely compliant (supposedly) to the Institute?
@natural human
this might just refer to natural birth or birth in vat aka an artificial womb. With both methods you may use genetic engineering. In vat birth might also meen birth of a set of several genetic equal or similar beeings.
There’s a description later on of what the line edit involved for Cantra, and it appeared to be something like a tailored virus that designed to kill all and only those people with the undesired genetic heritage, rather than a human assassin.
I’m not sure if the Lyre Institute’s graduates count as natural humans: Tolly doesn’t appear to believe so, given his references to himself as a manufactured thing. It’s possible the Institute’s methods have changed over the centuries.
In the OP: his pretty Inside accent disappears in emotional extremity.
I took it to indicate that the accent disappeared because his whole persona was no longer needed, i.e., he had been exposed, so why bother to continue with the façade?
@ Natural Human
Since Tolly appears one universe and several centuries after Cantra, Jela and Dulsey I believe the comparison of who is a natural human or not to be misleading. Very properly not only methods of producing Humans have changed but also the opinions about them. Properly several times.
In essence Uncles statement about fashion.