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.
Dosavi Mikelsyn has a few moments of disquieting insight. His comment to Tocohl suggests that he could tell that she was bringing her weapons up to yellow, which is good observation when later Inkirani is standing next to a Tocohl with weapon systems fully ready and doesn’t notice a thing. And that comment about a long, free life being the goal of all present strikes me as a poke at Inkirani — although one that is, it turns out, not quite on point.
Indeed, it appears I’ve misjudged Inkirani Yo. (Somewhat. As the narrative makes clear, she might not have been as generous in other circumstances.)
Likewise, it appears Tocohl has misjudged Inkirani, too. For that matter, she appears to have misjudged herself: she noted earlier that gaining Inkirani’s data was a priority but preserving Inkirani’s safety was not, but now, even though she has the data, she still acted to save Inki. (Or perhaps it’s just that, on this occasion, it wasn’t difficult to achieve both.) In any case, those two are going to have a lot to discuss about this incident — if they can trust each other enough to have the discussion.
So now we have a question: Why has the Lyre Institute put out a contract on Inki? Was that the plan all along, to make sure that the information she’d bought with the Institute’s coin would get back to the Institute, in case she was tempted to put it to her own use? Or is it inspired by some more recent event (such as, say, Hazenthull showing an interest in a place she could only have learned about from Inki)?
I didn’t get the impression that the Dosavi was particularly observant when he noticed Tocohl’s weapons at yellow, but rather that he had access to sensors capable of detecting that sort of thing. But maybe that’s what you meant.
Yes, that’s more or less what I meant. If I was fuzzy about the way I said it, it might have been partly because of the hints (which I realise now I didn’t comment on in the post) that the Dosavi is involved in cybernetic augmentation, which would blur the distinction between “having good sensors” and “having good senses”.
PA: Why has the Lyre Institute put out a contract on Inki? Was that the plan all along
Not sure this plan would have made sense if her mandate had been to attempt to persuade the newly awakened Old One. Or were you thinking at that point, that she might not have been aware that this directive was merely a ploy to motivate her actions and put her into the right place to be located by the bounty hunter? I believe Inki’s guess—which appears the next time we see them—is more likely to be the explanation.
I think I was thinking that the plan might have been to get Inki to retrieve the data from the Dosavi and then have the bounty hunter retrieve the data from Inki and carry it back to the Institute, based on the thought that the Institute might have become aware that Inki was testing the bounds of her control and didn’t trust her not to run off with the data and use it to her own advantage.