Ahab-Esais
In which Tocohl and Inki meet the light keepers.
They’re not dead yet. That’s a good start.
(Tocohl and Inki, but also Jen Sin and Lorith, who I’m pleased to see have survived and made some measure of progress.)
I’m not confident that resetting the Light’s Ethics setting is going to be much immediate help. An Ethics setting is just a number without the accompanying definitions of what each number represents (something acknowledged by Tolly earlier when he talked about one of Admiral Bunter’s Ethics settings being out of order due to some of the files being damaged), and even if modern Ethics modules follow a standard design, I wouldn’t expect an Ethics module designed centuries ago by the Great Enemy to hew to the same standard. A device specifically designed to subvert and destroy life might follow a code of ethics that has no objection to murder even on the highest setting. But I suppose the mentors won’t know for sure unless they make the attempt.
The introduction of the light keepers, like the introduction of Tinsori Light itself, is just more new information for a first-time reader, but full of little moments of extra depth for a reader who knows Jen Sin’s story. Like Lorith’s casual reference to not having observed what happens during the times when they are not required by the Light.
Or the big one: There are now two pilots of Korval at Tinsori Light — and neither aware that the other is a child of Korval, nor with any reason to raise the subject. It will be interesting to see how that develops. If it comes to one figuring it out, the odds favour Tocohl: she might recognise a family resemblance of physical feature, and depending on how well educated she is on the family history she might know the story of Jen Sin yos’Phelium’s visit to Tinsori Light, neither of these being avenues available to Jen Sin for figuring out Tocohl.
I feel a bit sorry for Uncle Yuri, who so much wants to keep Korval and Korval’s Luck away from his project…
PA: I wouldn’t expect an Ethics module designed centuries ago by the Great Enemy to hew to the same standard. A device specifically designed to subvert and destroy life might follow a code of ethics that has no objection to murder even on the highest setting.
This point could do with further discussion, I believe. (Othin, I’d be interested in your thoughts too.) I’m jumping ahead, but, we now know that the Light was originally designed and built by the Uncle in the Old Universe. It was then subverted by the sheriekas and became—as Jen Sin tells Inki in the next part—evil. How does an independent self-aware logic become evil? The ethics setting is at zero perhaps? Would that do it? Wouldn’t there also have to be core mandates about destroying humans that attempt to reach the physical core or even who (as Inki does) express the intention of reaching the core? Also, the concept of evil has a spiritual as well as a practical aspect, is that what the authors are getting at—that the physical/practical aspect is responsible for the spiritual?