Keravath, on Port, Balfour
In which Jethri and ter’Astin finish their business on Balfour and move on to their next destination.
Trouble indeed: somebody has been aboard the ship. Somebody who had a key, which they ought not to have had, and by the signs is a Scout. (Or an ex-Scout? I continue to cast suspicious looks in a very particular direction.)
Jethri’s meeting with the memorable Mr Dorster has turned up more of Iza’s neglect: basic documents and proofs of identity never completed or filed.
The Scout is also interested in the mysterious manifesto, “Arin’s Envidaria of the Seventeen Worlds”. As it is now too late to ask Freza more about it, Jethri merely tells him, truthfully but incompletely, that he never heard of it before today. The Seventeen Worlds are apparently a cluster of planets along the galatic arm where travel is unusually restricted by cosmic phenomena that are expected to last for the next few centuries; if Arin was taking the long view – and considering how old he probably was, it might not have seemed as long as all that – the Envidaria may involve a plan for how things will shift when the cosmic phenomena get out of the way. (And although “the next few centuries” is a pretty vague timespan, I can’t help noting that one plausible interpretation of a few centuries on from this novel puts us right about the time the next Liaden novel is due to be set…)
And now they are off to Vincza, where the Scout has hope for finding something and Jethri has been invited to a regional trade meeting (run by the Carresens Coordinating Committee, a name which rings a distinct bell: the Carresens are still trading in one of the later novels, and I seem to remember one of them mentioning Arin in a historical context, though I don’t recall what is said).
I wonder if Freza’s ship will also be attending the trade meeting. Not just because of the several reasons Jethri has for wanting to see her again, but also because the meeting’s being held in the system where they had their last, ill-fated meeting, and it would be kind of appropriate for it also to be the location of their next meeting, where hopefully they will fare better.
Chapter 18 of Dragon Ship is where the Carresens re-appear. (Or appear for the first time, if you’re going in publication order.)
I thought the Carresens appear sideways in Saltation with the last name of Theo’s roommate. BTW, I’m enjoying the commentary. I recently finished my own full series reread in anticipation of The Gathering Edge (with short stories out of order), so this is a nice extension while I wait for Neogenesis. Sharon put a link to your reread commentary in their Reddit AMA for Gathering Edge, which is how I found it.
Thank you. (And that was nice of her, since I know she finds the existence of this site a bit bemusing.)
Theo’s roommate, Asu diamon Dayez, does come from a family that’s associated with ships, but I’m not sure how you get from her surname to Carresens’?
You’re right. There was an Asha Carresens-Denobli in The Gathering Edge, and I was mixing her up with Asu, especially since Theo runs into Asha’s captain mother who mentions that Asha was at Cordrescu when she took away the ambassador (Hevelin) … Wrong daughter of a major Terran trading family, although Asu was at Cordrescu at the end of the pilots in peril rescue as well.
PA: since I know she finds the existence of this site a bit bemusing
Ah, here it is. I felt like I was still too new to this reread blog/discussion to ask for clarification of this comment my first time through. Now that I’m going for a reread myself, I feel I can: What did she find bemusing about the existence of this site? Inquiring minds want to know . . .
It wasn’t the existence of the site itself, so much as there was something about how I was defining “chronological order” that didn’t fit with her understanding. I think… I don’t remember now exactly what it was, and it was in the comments on the now-defunct Livejournal mirror of her blog, so that page doesn’t exist any more for me to go back and refresh my memory.
While Tan Sim sits in a bar and reflects on his recent trade (incidently avoiding his return to the Coyander Kenso) the musicians break into song after they’d been only playing instruments. What interested me is the following comment: He’d enjoyed the change from his own keyboarding . . . I couldn’t help but think of the other keyboarders we know of, placed much further along the timelines, and wonder whether there actually might be a family connection we haven’t heard about—yet.