Surebleak Port
Portmaster’s Office
In which the portmaster and the survey team leader go for a walk.
The portmaster’s probably right that the port can survive if TerraTrade doesn’t grant them the upgrade. The question that’s hanging just now is, what if TerraTrade decides the recent unpleasantness means it has to downgrade them?
It’s nearly time for the Portmaster and Survey Leader to meet with Boss Surebleak, so this may be the last chance to get some speculations in.
I don’t have any good guesses about who Boss Surebleak might be, beyond “someone we haven’t met before”, but the part of me that expects every mystery to have a shocking twist insists on anticipating that the revelation of Boss Surebleak’s identity will be followed by a gasp of “You–?!”. Maybe it’s that surveyor who already thinks Korval are pirates; but I can’t see why he’d go to the trouble. Perhaps it’s somebody who’s actually on Conrad’s side running some kind of scam to discredit the old ways once and for all; but if that turns out to be the case, they’ll be in a lot of trouble with the people they’re trying to help, because they’ve caused actual damage already and risked worse.
I’m considering two possiblities about what Boss Surebleak is going to claim for Korval’s hold over the Surebleak population which both offer the potential for an entertaining anti-climax. One is the Old Tech fleet (“You mean the Old Tech fleet that left a few days ago?” “…I’m going to have to talk to my sponsor and get back to you.”) and the other is the Clutch (“Well, it happens that my next appointment is with the one and only Clutch Turtle currently known to be on planet. You’re welcome to come along and be witness when I ask her what she has to say about this.”). A less amusing possibility is that Boss Surebleak will point to the mercs, which is a plausible suggestion given that they’ve said they’ll continue establishing a presence on the planet regardless of the survey’s outcome.
I don’t think I had any speculations beyond the idea that it would “merely” be one more agent of change set in motion by the DOI.
Oddly though we are told about the Commander sending the fleet but not this agent? Is it supposed to be a decoy for the fleet? Or a plan B in case the fleet doesn’t destroy Surebleak? Or some independent part of the DoI?
What do you make of this?
The Commander throwing everything she has against Korval in the hope that at least one thing will work?
You’re right that there isn’t anything in the prologue that I recognise as a hint of the Commander sending the team behind Boss Surebleak, which I think is another reason why I spent so much time speculating about other possibilities for Boss Surebleak’s motives.
What if the Boss Surebleak ploy was set up by someone assigned by the Lyre Institute? The DOI has had its teeth pulled, so who’s going to be Korval’s “big bad” enemy now?
Othin, your question and Paul’s comments also reminded me of what we were seeing in Shout of Honor, where the ultimate source of the plan to send mercenaries to Surebleak was not clear, even to JinJee’s superiors/contacts.
Based on scenes the blog is not yet up to, I am convinced that the Boss Surebleak operation is being run by agents of change from the DOI. There are details that don’t make sense otherwise.
I’m also satisfied now that the plot from “Shout of Honor” was being run by the DOI, though I wasn’t at the time. My main reason for being unconvinced was the suggestion that whoever was running that plot was desperate and on their last resources, which didn’t fit the DOI as we’d seen it up to then but does fit the DOI as we see it in this novel.
“I’m also satisfied now that the plot from “Shout of Honor” was being run by the DOI, though I wasn’t at the time. My main reason for being unconvinced was the suggestion that whoever was running that plot was desperate and on their last resources, which didn’t fit the DOI as we’d seen it up to then but does fit the DOI as we see it in this novel.”
Good reasoning Paul. I feel the same but haven’t been able to put it into words.