Day 116
Standard Year 1118
Elthoria
In which Jethri opens his crate from home.
The dent in the B-crate has all kinds of interesting potential stories behind it, depending on just when it happened. If it happened on the way from Khat to Jethri, that’s one thing. If Khat just added her own few items to the crate Iza was already storing Jethri’s stuff in, and Iza put the dent in it herself at some point since Arin’s death, that’s another thing. If Iza was making use of one of Arin’s old crates, and it was already dented when he got it, that’s another thing again (and at this point a small voice in my head is muttering, speculatively, “Wildetoad Wildetoad Wildetoad…”). But no, it says some of the fastenings jammed when the crate was deformed, so it most likely happened since Khat packed it up.
There’s a paragraph in this chapter that speaks to some of the conversation that’s been going on in the comment threads: “Say what you would about Iza Gobelyn’s temper, and no question she was cold. Say it all – and when it was said, the fact remained that she was a canny and resourceful captain, who held the best good of the ship in her heart.” Gotta admit, though, we haven’t actually seen much of that side of her so far.
Jethri interprets the monogram on the signet ring box as “Arin Jethri Gobelyn”. If he’s correct to do so, does that mean that Arin was already a Gobelyn when he was still a commissioner, before he married Iza?
Another little puzzle: at the bottom of the fractin collection, a rack made of an unfamiliar metal; with Crystal Dragon fresh in memory, I wonder if it’s a data-case to go with the data-tiles. (Or perhaps just an attempt at re-creating a data-case, the way Nelirikk’s shibjela is not a real shib.)
All the focus on the fractin collection leads me to realise that Jethri’s lucky fractin hasn’t been making many appearances lately, and his old habit of playing with it when he was nervous has completely disappeared since he started protocol lessons.
RE: Jethri’s lucky fractin…This was another of the many details of these two stories that struck me as more significant than it actually was. I expected this fractin to be a key somehow to unlocking the secret of recreating the fractins maybe. But no, once he gives it up, that’s the last we hear of it. Frustrating!
That’s a thing I’ve found about this novel, that the authors throw a lot of details in that seem like they’re going to be significant and then nothing plot-significant ends up being done with them. It’s part of what contributed, for me, to the feeling at the end of the book that the story wasn’t really over. I don’t remember having the same trouble with the sequel, or not to the same extent, but maybe I was just used to it by then.
The end of this novel was obviously a “To be continued . . .” cut off. But then the second one, although it had a bit more of a plot, still just threw out world-building details couched in character interactions and a bare plot framework. Oh, well. I’m happy to have that world-building background, I just wish it had all been brought to a more satisfying conclusion.
Before Jethri actually leaves his room, there’s a sequence of s‘s in the text that had me chuckling: (he) slipped on a pair of soft ship slippers, and sorted. It’s almost as if one of our authors challenged the other to see how many s‘s they could load a sentence with! Let’s say it together now: “She sells seashells at the seashore.”