Shipyear 65
Tripday 136
Third Shift
11.30 hours
In which the pet librarian works everywhere but the pet library.
Priscilla continues to make friends, and Kayzin Ne’Zame continues to not be one of them. Shan clearly hasn’t been telling his first mate what he’s up to, or she wouldn’t have been surprised to find Priscilla in the comms tower, but I don’t know that I blame him; it’s not strictly something that a captain is obliged to tell his first mate about, and it wouldn’t be a problem except that she’s inclined to be suspicious of Priscilla, which is her problem and not his. It’s uncomfortable for Priscilla, though.
The norbears in the pet library have a mix of names; Delm Briat has a very Liaden name, Master Frodo a very Terran one, and Lady Selph and Tiny could go either way. (Most importantly, though: norbears!)
Tonee sig’Ella is, I notice, one of those characters who occasionally appear in this series for whom the authors have not found it necessary to resort to gender-specific pronouns.
This chapter’s dateline doesn’t fit 7-hour shifts or 6-hour shifts, unless it’s anticipating the beginning of Third Shift at 12.00 hours. Alternatively, it does fit 5-hour shifts, and so does every other dateline we’ve had since Priscilla boarded the Passage.
But…but….but…norbears that climb into your *hand*!? When we met norbears in “Out of True” they were described as thigh-high and shorter, but not so tiny as to curl into a human palm!
I always believed that the norbears on Dutiful Passage are of the smaller hot house variety. Not sure where I read that. Still it would be interesting if Hevelin gets to meet his smaller “cousins”. We might get details of the differences and abilities of both species.
They are only 6-8 inches, according to the guidebook. In Mouse and Dragon (chapter 20) Daav and Aellianna look up norbears in their wildlife book:
Norbear–Size: 16-22 cm; Weight: 121-180 g. Furred quadrupedal mammal with a burrowing habit; soft dense coat, ranging in color from grey, brown, black, orange, white and mixed. Herbivore. Fearless and lively disposition, natural empath. Adapts well to domestication. Banned on certain worlds. Check port rules before importing.” (Courier Wildlife Guide, Fourteenth Edition)
Norbears are “not so large as a cat nor yet so small as a mouse.” (Mouse & Dragon, ch 20).
Well, I don’t know what size your hands are, but mine…which are large enough to play piano efficiently…would not allow for a 6 inch creature to curl up in my palm!
I just tried to get a feel for it with the first thing I found that was about the right size (a bag of breakfast cereal, 10 inches long and weighing as much as four heavy norbears — 180g is extraordinarily light, it turns out), and I could carry it on one hand without difficulty and without, I think, too much flopping over the sides.
Or it might not be an adult norbear. Presumably there are immature norbears less than 6 inches, if norbears grow in the usual way.
Oh, I’m not saying I couldn’t carry a norbear on my hand, that’s not the problem. I’m trying to picture one curling up “in” the palm of my hand. It seems like it would have to be more the size of a hamster to do that.
If Liadens are about 5 feet tall – aka 150 – 155 meter – and Hevelin reaches with one paw Theos knees, that would make the arms either quite long or Hevelin taller than those 22 cm. With my 158 cm I’d be a little big for a Liaden (like Korval) and to reach my knee one would need 42 cm. Or does those 18-22 cm tall refer to shoulder height like it is done with dogs? That would make a norbear walking on two feet instead of four quite a bit taller. For comparison:
“Wikipedia – Cat anatomy – Domestic cats: Cats average about 23–25 cm (9–10 in) in height and 46 cm (18 in) in head/body length (males being larger than females), with tails averaging 30 cm (12 in) in length.”