Day 42
Standard Year 1118
Gobelyn’s Market
Departing
In which there are secrets in all families.
With Paitor and Grig wanting to let Jethri know a few things, there’s a lot of background filled in here, not all of which ends up being noticeably relevant in the rest of this novel.
Allowing for a bit of linguistic drift, it seems likely that the blusharie the three of them share is the same kind of drink as the blusherrie Niku and Friar Julian drink in celebration at the end of “Eleutherios”.
Speaking of things returning under new names, the fractins – the Fractional Mosaic Memory Modules – seem likely to be the same as the data-tiles that were all over the place in Crystal Dragon. (Interesting that we get more description of what they look like and what they’re made of in this book than we ever did in the one where they were all over the place. I suppose when they were all over the place, none of the viewpoint characters paid them much attention.) And the suggestion that within a few years something is going to start happening to them is one of those bits that isn’t picked up in this novel, but might be in the sequel.
I’m not sure what to make of the business about there possibly having been more than one Terra.
In case I haven’t mentioned it, I liked this book.
This chapter was long, compared to some.
I was happy that Jethri got a sending-off party. His mom is a royal B, but at least the rest of the family is decent.
One of the secrets they told him is that he wasn’t expected. Was he a clone? I mean, a true clone?
The Combine. Of which Arin was a commissioner. Right? Never quite understood exactly what it was or why it mattered to the larger plot — to Liaden / Terran relations, or to the embryonic DoI, or to the Builders. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.
You said: “there’s a lot of background filled in here, not all of which ends up being noticeably relevant in the rest of this novel.”
Yup. These authors often insert stuff that isn’t relative to the rest of the novel or series. However, maybe Grigor and Paitor’s revelations will become more relative to the upcoming sequel. Forgot the title.
Seems obvious that the fractions are indeed the same things we read about in Crystal Dragon.
More than one Terra? Yes, obscure. Paitor’s abruptly cut statement: “Terra, what they call the home world, is maybe the third or fourth Terra we’ve called home in sequence…” I have no clue what this means…but we know these guys have visited the rebirthing chamber multiple times, like Uncle, so who knows where they’ve lived…
I wonder if the name of The Uncle’s courier ship, Arin’s Toss (see Ghost Ship) has any bearing on how Arin died, mentioned in this chapter. Ya think?
Interesting observation about Blue Sherrie / blusherrie. Blue wine and kitty cats. These two things seem to show up in nearly every single full-length book in the series. I get the authors love cats, but what’s with the blue beverage?
Ps. More evidence about the age of this universe, in the middle of this chapter:
“Given the half-life of that timonium, Arin figured them for about 1800 standards old…” (referring to the Befores, fractins)
So, these numbers add up roughly to the 1118 year-date the authors assigned to this book, given that the Sheriekas engaged in two big wars with humans before the migration, losing the first battle several hundred years before Crystal Dragon, but coming back even stronger, later.
There’s something in a later chapter that speaks to the question of whether Jethri is a clone, but I don’t remember what it says.
The Combine, as I understand it, is the organization that oversees (some of?) the Terran traders. They issue the data keys that let traders interact with the Terran trade network; the chapter with Jethri in the pub mentioned that if he’d had a key he’d have been able to access more information about the ships in port than was on the public display board, and there’s more later on about other things the keys permit access to. What, if anything, the Combine has to do with the series overplot, I’m not sure. They may just be part of the background of this novel (and its sequel) and fade away or change into something else instead of remaining relevant.
Now, it’s an odd thing about the blusharie: it’s not blue. The bottle is blue, but the liquid in it is described as amber. (Then again, at another point it’s “gem-colored”, which I would have associated with blue before I associated it with amber. I wonder if the scene was originally written with something less exotic, and not all the descriptors got caught when it changed to blusharie.) The blusherrie in “Eleutherios” is definitely blue.
I too remember something about Jethri being a clone of Arin, but this chapter didn’t explain that thought.
Amber isn’t precisely a gem, but it is used to make jewelry. Perhaps that’s close enough to make it “gem-coloured”?
Ah. I always assumed it was blue…. 🙂
Yes, I guess I read about his clone-hood elsewhere, but even then, I think I was a little unclear. It seemed he was a clone, but yet was not. Will wait till you reach that chapter…
As for the Combine, good to know. I am always on the alert for hints about the inception of the Department of the Interior. I thought maybe the Combine created or fostered the anti-Terran racism displayed by the DoI.
No, what amber isn’t is a stone or rock of some kind. Amber (fossilized tree resin) and pearls are considered gems, despite having organic origins. …on the other hand, something that has been fossilized has its original organic components replaced by minerals, does it not? And what is a pearl made of? Like mother-of-pearl or any other seashell, it is formed from layers of mineral extracted from the water by a living organism which then excretes it in thin layers. Same with mammalian bones, which are formed out of calcium. They aren’t considered stone, but they are composed of minerals.
However, there ARE amber-colored mineral gems, such as citrine, calcite, topaz, and quartz.
Grig tells Jethri: “Some of the earlier studies, they went missing. Stolen (PROBABLY BY DEPT of INTERIOR Founder). Arin said some people got worried about what would happen if loopers and ship owners got interested in Befores as more than a sometimes high-profit oddity — if they started looking for old tech, and figured out how to make them work.” (FORESHADOWING The department of interior, I’d guess.)
“Given the half-life of Timonium, Arin figured them for about 1800 Standards old. Won’t be long before the timonium gets too weak to power whatever it powers…(so, Timonium is a power source. The mythical ZPed drive.
Arin figured fractions was maybe memory. Warship, library, and computer, all rolled into one. Including guidance and plans. That’s what Arin thought, and it’s what he wanted you to know. (More foreshadowing. I hope their stolen old tech Befores will bite the DoI when it’s ready to cut loose)
Also, this: The hidden message Jethri finds says “Wild Toad, Wild Toad, Wild Toad.” None of the main line Wildes had been seen since. They’d gone to ground. Warn away Euphoria.” Etc.
Wasn’t B Jerome Joyita from the Wikiwilds. Or some such?
Alas, it was something like that, but not enough like that to make a match: Jermone Joyita was from the Wikesworlds.
Ah. Well, it would have been a fun finding, and even made some sense, given that Uncle knew Joyita.
The most recent reference I recall for the term “gem-colored,” was in Crystal Dragon, chpt 34. When Tree is showing Cantra a vision of everyone leaving the planet Solcintra, the text mentions “the jewel-colored dragonet which the tree had settled on as its version of her co-pilot.” I certainly did not picture the color amber to be what the authors intended for Tor An, especially with Cantra being a gold dragon. In fact, when I read the term, I distinctly remember thinking it suggested a bright red, but I couldn’t tell you why. In any case, I have become convinced that the authors use this term whenever they want to describe a color…any color…that has both bright flashes and saturated depths. Like any high quality, well-cut, (colored) gemstone.
@ jewel-colored dragonet –> I always thought of a daragonet with many brilliant colors – a bit like a rainbow. Deep sapphire blue & emerald green to jade green, some ruby red and amethyst or amber and citrine yellow.
When I read about Padi accepting her dragon nature I pictured her dragon similar to Tor An’s dragonet.
@clone
Hasn’t it been Uncle and Dulsey giving Jethri assurance that he is no Clone and therefore not violating any laws/terran sensibilities? Jethri seems to be what Uncle terms as one of his sibs (brothers and sisters) – very similar to Uncle even on the genetic level but with some genes being different – so that he has some different talents. Uncle leaves it to speculation whether Jethri (and his other sibs) are after the genetic manipulation/manufacturing implanted into a women and then born or if he was vat breed (artificial womb). Since it was Arin who took baby Jethri with him I suspect that the material used for manipulation was not directly Uncle’s but Arin’s.
It also remains open how much those methods of reproduction are similar to what Lyre institute uses or the Yxtrang.
@ hidden message – Wild Toad
?? I don’t remember that. Could you refresh my memory?
@ Othin: I must not have come back to your comment, or I would have argued the point further.
Jethri may not be strictly a clone, but only by the barest margin. It becomes apparent that it is Arin’s genetic material that is used to create Jethri, with just some minor tweaks to give him an advantage in recognizing the fake fractins. As we know from later books, even Seignur Veeoni is a “clone” of Uncle’s, as were Arin and Grig. The difference with Grig seems to be that he has the ability to procreate in an organic way, rather than going back to the Uncle’s birthing machine.
I don’t know if it’s ever said that the others can’t procreate in an organic way, or if they just choose not to. Yuri himself has probably come to prefer the amount of control the machine lets him have over the outcome, while others like Seignur Veeoni might just not be interested in procreation of any kind.
That’s true Paul. In fact, I thought of that while I was posting, but chose to leave it as I said. But actually, I agree that we don’t really know (although we do know *now* that Jethri’s genes end up spread all over!).