Dutiful Passage
Pommierport

In which there is an unexpected detour or two.

I think that when Priscilla talks about “ambient noise”, she doesn’t mean quite the same thing as the Haosa do when they talk about “the ambient”. If it is, it’s noteworthy that the course of action suggested by her training is to try to block it out.

It is probably unfair of me to assume that the ex-crewperson who was causing trouble was Hepster si’Neest, just because that’s the only one of the eight whose name we know.

When Mar Tyn showed up, I was like, “Oh, this character has the same forename as the protagonist of Fortune’s Favors“, and it took a few more paragraphs for the penny to drop. In my defence, he has a new surname now; I guess that means he got into the House of Fortune. And Dyoli was only in one scene, and her surname we never knew at all. (She’s the Healer who took charge of Aazali at the end, when Mar Tyn took her to be trained; I guess this means they’ve kept in touch, or else something’s happened to bring them back together. I hope it doesn’t mean something bad’s happened to Aazali.)

What it means that he’s here, now, will presumably become clear. I thought perhaps his luck was pointing him in the direction of the Redlands, but then the next scene happened and it appears we’re not going to the Redlands just yet.

It’s too soon to guess what Trader Carresens-Denobli’s request for a meeting portends; it would be gratifying if it was a trade opportunity that made the eight ex-crewmen regret that they didn’t stick around just a bit longer, but seeing how many pages we have left I’m going to guess it’s not.