Ahab-Esais

In which there is a light in darkness.

Inkirani said earlier that Tocohl’s builder had done good work, but she didn’t know the half of it.

This is one of those plot turns that I didn’t see coming, but it makes perfect sense once it’s happened. We know that Jeeves would not send his daughter out into the world without defences. (And, if less reassuringly when it’s Tocohl we’re talking about, we know that his history makes him alert to the dangers of a malfunctioning AI on the loose, so he would take precautions against that too.) We know that Tocohl’s design is based on Jeeves, so she’s potentially capable of anything he’s capable of. And we know that Jeeves was originally designed as an Independent Armed Military Module.

I hadn’t really thought about the possible implications of that last one. Tocohl hasn’t acted like a military unit (which we find here is because that side of her was left dormant until needed), but more than that Jeeves hasn’t acted like one lately. It’s easy to forget what he’s capable of when he spends all his time in butler mode.

Another thing that came as a surprise because he spends all his time in butler mode is hearing him speak in the mode of parent to child. We’ve never seen him do that before, and it feels a bit weird, in that way that seeing a new side of someone you know well always does.

The scene where the echo of Jeeves offers Tocohl the use of the war bridge reminds me a bit of Lute offering Shan the Soldier Lore in I Dare, though Jeeves is a bit more straightforward about the changes that accepting the offer will entail.