In which Admiral Bunter has a personal question.
I like the little bits where Tolly is appreciating Admiral Bunter’s grasp of non-verbal communication, but keeping it to himself so as not to derail the conversation.
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Tarigan
Nostrilia Outspace
In which Hazenthull has a nap.
All this nothing-happening is very wearing on the nerves. One could almost start thinking that nothing is going to happen, that the warning message is going to arrive in the nick of time and Hazenthull is going to get out unscathed.
Of course, the point where you start thinking that is the point where you really have to start worrying…
(And the other possibility is that it’s going to turn out that Hazenthull would have been fine, and it’s the warning message or the rescue mission that leads to her getting caught. But I don’t think the authors are that evil.)
In which Inkirani Yo offers a trade, which is accepted, and another, which isn’t.
The fact that Dosavi Mikelsyn addresses Inkirani as “Translator Yo” suggests a few things about what she was up to when they first met, and specifically that she wasn’t working as a mentor in those days.
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Ahab-Esais
In which Inkirani Yo lays out the next move.
If there truly are multiple instances of the Uncle loose in the galaxy, each with their own interests and contacts, how do they decide which is the Uncle? I suppose the obvious answer is that at any given moment there is one who lives in Vivulonj Prosperu and hangs out with Dulsey, and that one gets to decide who his successor is, but it’s fun to speculate about less plausible options.
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Surebleak
In which Korval goes visiting.
Kamele has a come a long way in her understanding of risk and safety since we first met her.
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Vivulonj Prosperu
In which the Uncle makes an unscheduled detour.
Taggerth’s Trade News, which Daav classifies under “comedy” rather than “news”, has been mentioned a few times before, when Kamele is catching up on news of her daughter in Dragon Ship and again during Shan’s trading mission in Alliance of Equals. Kamele and Shan both share Daav’s low opinion of its value as a news source.
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In which the cavalry rides out.
I’m trying to remember if the concept of “composite Jump” has come up before this book. It’s not mentioned in the scene in Alliance of Equals where Hazenthull is composing the message to Miri informing her of her intentions, but then that scene doesn’t include any of the details of Hazenthull’s intentions, just the fact of her composing the message. (Old writer’s trick: “The hero has a plan! … which we will tell you all about next time, when we’ve figured out what it is.”) The bit about Admiral Bunter’s kind of composite Jump coming with the risk of ending up somewhere completely unexpected might just be a detail to add excitement, but it sounds to me like something a story could be hung on — the question is, is it this story?
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In which Hazenthull has a plan.
Things appear to be going well for Haz so far. I’m finding this the opposite of reassuring.
In which Hazenthull has not taken Tolly at his word.
That’s two chapters in a row that’s had discussion of what Jump feels like to a ship. I wonder if it’s going to become important, or if it was just something the authors decided to put in in case anyone was wondering.
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In which Admiral Bunter and Tolly discuss necessary action and acceptable risk.
A nice piece of narrative judo, here. By having Tolly explain things to Admiral Bunter, the reader is informed of matters that will be relevant to the ongoing adventures of Inkirani and Tocohl, who couldn’t have handled that bit of exposition themselves without it coming down to them telling each other things they already know. As a bonus, there’s the little touch of irony that Tolly and the Admiral consider going to the place where they would have met again with their former companions, and then decide not to.
I also like the bit where Tolly is telling Admiral Bunter about the rumour regarding the Carresens-Denobli long-looper. He says that there is this rumour; he doesn’t say what he knows from his own experience of its accuracy. Of course that’s something he doesn’t need to be telling Admiral Bunter at this point in their relationship; all the Admiral needs to know is that there may be other people like him out there.