Dark Secrets

In which the crack team of Kilsymthe and yo’Dira deal with some unfinished business.

Being that this story involves an entirely new cast of characters at an entirely new location, it’s a bit short of indications about where it fits in relative to the main series. It’s more recent than the Jethri books, since the team-up of a Terran spacer and Liaden is unpopular in some quarters but not considered a remarkable innovation. The bit about “the asterisked end-notes in the ven’Tura Tables” might indicate that it’s before the Tables were properly revised. Caerli uses the technique called the Smuggler’s Ace; the earliest mention we have of that is in Scout’s Progress, but I don’t think we know how old it already was then, so that doesn’t help much.

The list of customers at the drinkery includes two women in “librarian’s robes”, which I’m not sure what to make of.

2 thoughts on “Dark Secrets

  1. Jayme Weare

    Are the stories From Every Storm a Rainbow and Our Lady of Benevolence complete on this site? I am unable to locate them anywhere else. I own Constellations 1-5 and found Chimera and Wise Child free at Baen. If the stories are posted at Baen I would appreciate knowing where to find them as I am dedicated to rereading all the stories you list according to internal chronology not just the novels. I have loved and reread this series since I bought the first 3 novels when they first came out, but never had all the short stories much less where they fit in the timeline.

  2. Paul A. Post author

    There are currently five short stories I’m aware of that haven’t yet been collected in one of the Constellations.

    “Chimera” and “Wise Child”, as you know, were free Baen stories (and are still available in the Free Stories 2015 collection and the Free Stories 2016 collection, respectively).

    “From Every Storm a Rainbow” was also a free Baen story, and is available as part of the Free Stories 2021 collection.

    “Our Lady of Benevolence” is currently only available as part of the collection Bread Alone.

    “Standing Orders”, which I haven’t yet covered on this site, is currently only available in the anthology Derelict.

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