Tag Archives: Aito

Dragon Ship – Chapter 19

Tradedesk

In which there are many meetings.

…well, that seems a pretty clear statement that Bechimo was built in or shortly after Jethri’s time, with Arin’s ideas as guidance. There have been other people named Arin (there’s one in Crystal Dragon), and there might even have been another who was a noted thinker on subjects of interest to traders, but it’s not likely there was another who was all that and had a son who took a different path.

But we’re still stuck with the fact that the beginning of Ghost Ship states straight up that Bechimo has been awaiting a captain for over five hundred years – which is to say, since two hundred years before Jethri was born.

(On another, less contradictory, note, we have another hint to go with the one from “Intelligent Design” of a technological underpinning for psychic abilities in the Liaden Universe.)

Saltation – Chapter 39

Primadonna
Volmer

In which Theo meets a Dulsey and an Uncle.

It’s not clear whether this Dulsey and this Uncle are the same Dulsey and the same Uncle that Jethri ven’Deelin knew a few centuries ago, but if they are that might have something to do with Theo finding them both indeterminate of age. (Win Ton described this Uncle as “one who fell heir to the title”, which could be interpreted several ways, particularly bearing in mind the whole business back then about Uncle Yuri’s “younger brothers”.) I notice that the description of the Uncle, when he appears, carefully avoids any of the details – height, build, eye colour, hair colour – that might give a basis for comparison with descriptions we’ve previously been given of Uncle(s).

Saltation – Chapter 35

Primadonna
In Transit

In which Theo receives several more things unexpectedly.

Theo’s remark about Mayko being afraid she’ll lose the contract is, I think, a joke about Theo physically mislaying the contract before she has a chance to sign it, but in another sense I think Mayko actually is afraid that she, that is Mayko, will lose the contract — in these present unsettled times, it’s possible that a good pilot might find opportunity or necessity leading her down a path away from Hugglelans. And the more so if she’s given formal recognition as a first class pilot before those other paths are closed off.

Rig Tranza’s song about “the ship Jonny B” is perhaps a space-age descendant of the old folk song about the misadventures of the sloop John B. The one about having enough cooks for an army isn’t specifically familiar in the same way, but does sound appropriately folk-song-like.

Theo’s worry about urgent bad news from home turned out to be unfounded — this time. But if this is after all that eventfulness on Lytaxin, there is bad news from home that’s got to catch up with her some time.

Saltation – Chapter 33

Primadonna
Alanzia Port

In which an expected package comes in an unexpected shape.

It’s been two years since Theo left Eylot to start working with Rig Tranza, and in that time she’s visited nineteen planets, which might mean that they’re averaging one-and-a-quarter months between planets, or more likely that they’ve got a regular patch of space and have visited some of those planets more than once. Or else the wording “set foot on” is significant, and they’ve visited additional planets that Theo’s foot didn’t get to meet.

Two years is significant, too, because Eylot said that after two years they might possibly consider letting her back into Anlingdin Academy if she grovelled enough. She doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry to go and find out if that was true.

Landed Alien

In which Kara ven’Arith takes a very long tenday tour.

I take note of the way Kara’s mother and Kara’s delm are always mentioned in this story in the same breath, and the way those mentions are worded, and in addition consider the similar mention of Kara’s mother early in Saltation, and the conclusion I draw is that this is one of those Liaden melant’i situations where “mother” and “delm” are two hats worn by a single person but spoken of separately because the same person might be required to consider a situation differently depending on which set of eyes she’s regarding it with.

The Station Master is another addition to the list of characters for whom the authors of have chosen not to provide gendered pronouns. I might not have found it worth mentioning, but that there’s a sentence near the end of the story which attracted attention by going somewhat out of its way to avoid a pronoun.


Tomorrow: Agent of Change

Saltation – Chapter 31

Hugglelans Planetary
Conglomeration of Portcalay
Eylot

In which Theo shakes the dust of Eylot from her feet.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and I really don’t think “Theo’s annual discovery that she’s underestimated Hugglelans” is going to become a running joke, if only because there’s not much further it can go. (“Really, Theo? Did you think Hugglelans was just this universe? Listen: there’s a very nice universe next door…”)

Aito in this mode really does remind one of Theo’s father, and his family somewhat of Theo’s father’s family. I’m pretty sure House Hugglelans is Terran — surely something would have been said by now if they weren’t — but it seems like they’ve picked up a thing or two by living this long on a half-Liaden world. The fact that, as we now learn, they too are a family of ships and pilots, likely also has something to do with it. (Though, at that, they’re not ships and pilots in precisely the same way; I can’t see Theo’s father’s family ever adopting the strategy of making a paying business out of their support structures, because it would mean tying themselves to stationary infrastructure, and their fundamental ethos is basically a large-scale version of the pilot packing rule about being able to depart at short notice without leaving anything important behind.)

Saltation – Chapter 21

Howsenda Hugglelans
Conglomeration of Portcalay
Eylot

In which Theo is introduced to the Third Son of House Hugglelans.

The moment in Theo’s encounter with Brine Batzer where she makes the effort to shift her stance to one that’s aware but not aggressive is significant for two reasons. One is that it shows Theo is working on developing an awareness of how her body language will read to others and on adjusting it appropriately (though also that it still needs work). The other is that, as Theo notes, her shift to a less aggressive stance doesn’t get an appropriate reaction from Batzer. This suggests a few things about Batzer, one of which is that despite owning five ships and presumably flying them, Batzer is not a pilot.

(Though it’s not as simple as that; we’ve had other instances of non-pilots being calmed by a pilot’s choice of body language. They weren’t consciously aware it was the body language doing it, was the difference. So perhaps it’s not just that Batzer isn’t a pilot; taking the chapter as a whole, I think it’s safe to say anyhow that Batzer just isn’t very advertant.)

Saltation – Chapter 19

Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Win Ton takes Theo to dinner.

Although, as when yos’Senchul and Veradantha included Theo in their dinner plans, it might be that the flight time and experience is as great a gift as the dinner. (Which is not to knock the dinner; one is getting the impression that a dinner at Howsenda Hugglelans is no small thing itself.)

When the kissing gets started, Win Ton kisses Theo’s temple, her neck, and her ear; it’s Theo who kisses Win Ton on the lips, a move he’s not expecting. We’ve seen this before with couples kissing across the Liaden-Terran cultural divide; between Liadens, face-to-face kissing is an especially intimate gesture not usually added to the repertoire until a relationship is considerably further advanced than this.

Saltation – Chapter 16

Conglomeration of Portcalay
Eylot

In which one may have anything at Hugglelans as long as one eats it under red sauce.

Theo’s advisors probably do want to hear her answers to their questions about her future hopes, but I think she’s right that there are other questions behind the questions, and I think that by asking about her future they’re also hoping to learn more about her past. Especially after the question about whether her father aimed her anywhere in particular, I suspect they’d like to know where he’s coming from. If Wilsmyth has discovered that Jen Sar Kiladi has no current flight time, surely Theo’s advisors have done the same.

Theo’s answer brings to mind the fact that the med tech a few chapters ago was confident that the life of a courier pilot lay in Theo’s future without having to ask, and, it now appears, before Theo knew herself. It might just be that as a med tech in a piloting academy he’s seen enough courier pilots in training to recognise the signs (especially if one of the signs is “shows up in the dispensary after getting in a fight”!) but I’m inclined to take it as more evidence that he’s a soul-weaver.