Day 81
Standard Year 1118
Kinaveral
In which the crew has a Word with the captain.
And things actually go reasonably smoothly, as far as the purpose of the meeting goes. Iza’s not inclined to be gracious, but she knows what she needs to do.
Where things get tense is when she decides to poke Grig about the things they both know (and Paitor knows some of, but perhaps not the rest of the family) about Arin and Jethri. We get what sounds like confirmation that the stuff of Arin’s that disappeared when he died wasn’t disposed of, but instead is the same stuff Paitor was nudging her in the first chapter about bundling away and never doing anything with. (And what does it say that she did bundle it away instead of just throwing it out? Or that she has decided now to get rid of it?) We also get an escalation of Iza’s insistence on regarding Jethri as Arin’s son and none of her own, though it stops short of anything that might be regarded as a clear explanation.
Why is Iza the captain? When you endanger the ship to the point where the crew needs a Word, how is it justified. I’m not sure how choosing a captain works. But having a Word seems to be a good way to air and resolve problems that would otherwise fester unsolved — formal rules allow it to happen in a controlled way that everyone is willing to do.
I don’t suppose Iza makes a habit of endangering the ship; I expect somebody would have had something to say on the subject if she did. We’re seeing her at an extreme, here; they’ve been grounded for weeks, already twice as long as they were on the ground at Ynsolt’i, and without the consolation of being able to look forward to lifting any time soon.
I presume, since everybody says she doesn’t take well to being on the ground, that she handles herself better when they’re in transit. And I suppose that on balance how the captain handles herself when the ship’s on the move is a more important qualification than how she handles herself when it’s sitting still, especially in a working ship that spends more time doing the former than the latter.
Judging from what we’ve seen in previous chapters, she is an angry person. Her behaviour requires others to smooth over or fix the ill will she sheds all the time. Not somebody I would like to see in charge of a small, family ship. They live in very close quarters — how can they afford her lack of “people skills”?
It is apparent that Iza has been captain for some time. It would be difficult to remove someone who has the right , the experience, and the seniority to be captain, and this type of meeting allows the crew to give her the opportunity to be reasonable. The fact that she does choose to be reasonable is a testament to who she really is under all the anger, resentment, and guilt. Guilt? Yes, guilt. Guilt for how she’s treated Jethri all these years, guilt for not overcoming her own emotions, guilt for getting rid of him.
Huh. I was coming here to write a comment almost exactly like I did last year, so—no need!
hu, you forgot the guilt of allowing Arin to go to die – and without her – which still might be the worst of it. And yes, surely Iza is a person to carry on a grudge – for several years – without thinking about it.
And if she happened to think on it she’d properly just call it being tough. And that tells us quite a bit about how she got along before Arin silver-tongue happened.