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Tokens used by traders to ensure a fair exchange of information.

Trader’s Leap – Chapter 24 (I-IV)

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Volmer

In which yos’Galan and Carresens begin an exchange.

The other thought I’d had about the people on the cover — in fact, the first thought I had on seeing it, and the only possibility I’d seriously entertained before Mar Tyn and Dyoli showed up — was that it was Padi accompanied by a new character we hadn’t met yet. I’d been becoming less confident about that possibility recently, as we got so far into the book without encountering any new character who fit the bill. I believe we have him now.

(I’ve commented before that I seem to have a tendency to ask questions and make guesses one chapter before the answer shows up. I consider that this says good things about how well paced the books are.)
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Necessity’s Child – Chapter 26

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In which Kezzi has dinner with her family.

The description of the “yellow plate with a design that might have been flowers or birds, or both, painted around the edge” reminds me of this plate, which comes from a 19th-century English dinnerware set that inspired the classic young adult novel The Owl Service. It’s been long enough since I read The Owl Service myself, though, that I don’t have any definite thoughts about what might be suggested by the comparison, even assuming it’s not just a coincidence.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 25

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In which Syl Vor introduces his sister to a game.

The information-trading game is interesting, because it’s never been mentioned before in a Liaden story, but it’s very similar to a game featured in one of Lee and Miller’s non-Liaden works.

Master Walk was published in a chapbook about a decade ago (the ebook edition is still available), and also appears in the print anthology Double Vision. I get the impression it was hoping to be the first of a new series – it’s got that feeling about it, like how you can often tell if a telemovie started life as a pilot episode – but so far there have been no sequels.

It’s science fiction again, set in a galaxy that is like and unlike that of the Liadens in various respects. The trading of information is a big thing both in the setting in general and the plot of Master Walk in particular, and the traders of information play the token-swapping game to keep score during a transaction. (It is considered that a transaction has not been completed with honor unless each participant gives and receives equal value.) The full game, at least in that version, uses tokens of several denominations, allowing a considerable amount of precision when indicating how much value is placed on a piece of information received.

There’s a moment that’s stayed with me, where a trader asks a question, receives the answer, and hands over a token indicating how valuable they found the answer to be – and the person they’re dealing with immediately also hands over a token, indicating that they’ve received valuable information from the size of the token the answer elicited.