Tag Archives: Bechimo Captain’s key

Dragon Ship – Chapter 26

Bechimo

In which Theo introduces Kara to her ship and crew.

I’ve been passing up several opportunities to comment on earlier, more subtle hints, but it’s pretty obvious now that there’s something going on between Theo and Kara. Good for them, though it’s not entirely consistent with the way their friendship was depicted in Saltation.

Perfection, the ship Asu is serving on, is now revealed to have the full name Asu Perfection. Or is “revealed” the wrong word? The obvious assumption is that its crew habitually shorten the name, in the manner of Shan and the crew of the Passage, but another possibility is that the ship was actually renamed to recognise a member of the Diamon family taking charge.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 18

Tradedesk

In which Laughing Cat confers with Carresens.

There are a lot of names in this chapter familiar from the Jethri books, although a large part of that is retroactive, since the Carresens family (and the Denobli family, who were a separate group back then) only appear in Trade Secret, which was written after this.

One name that isn’t retroactively familiar – though I didn’t recognise it myself the first time I read this novel, because I’m terrible with names when I’m not taking careful notes – is that of the thinker Arin, mentioned by Pilot Denobli, who was Jethri’s father Arin Gobelyn. And as such it’s probably not entirely a coincidence that the ship Theo flew for the Uncle bears his name, since the Uncle was Arin’s … let’s say “brother”, with the understanding that the Uncle’s family tree is kind of complicated.

(And the bit about Bechimo being well-suited to enact Arin’s ideas brings us back around to the idea of Bechimo having been created in Jethri’s time, only to founder once again on the fact that the numbers simply don’t add up.)

Pilot Denobli’s hair reminds me of two things. The hair itself brings to mind the elaborate spacer hairstyles mentioned in Trade Secret, which makes sense considering that Pilot Denobli is descended from the same spacer culture. The way he’s always fiddling with it makes me wonder about Theo’s first meeting with the Uncle, when he kept fiddling with his hair.

While we’re elaborating tenuous links between the Carresens and the Uncle, I’ve noticed something about their ship named OchoBalrog. The “Balrog” half has an obvious connection to the ship of that name owned by the Denobli family in Trade Secret, but we’ve seen the name Ocho once before in an entirely different context: it was the name of one of Dulsey’s siblings, way back in Crystal Soldier.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 15

Tradedesk

In which Theo is not getting through to people.

I thought at first that the ChivinTrade guy’s repeated emphasis on there being no need for Theo to come down and get planet dust on her boots sounded like some kind of resentful prejudice against spacers, but the information that he’s afraid of something suggests other possibilities. It might be connected to the politics Theo was hoping there wasn’t going to be any of; Chustling is the planet with the procedural, rather than meteorological, landing restrictions.

Compared to the status report at the beginning of the book, when Win Ton first went into the Remastering Unit, there’s been improvement in most measures, with Neurological and Skeletal the same, and Dermal, Reproductive, and Urinary somewhat lower (which might be a sign that the Unit is currently focusing its efforts on the bits Win Ton needs to survive).

Dragon Ship – Chapter 13

Tradedesk

In which Clarence explores the shopping district and his options.

When Joyita first announced himself, he had two rings on one hand. Now he has three.

Although I’ve read the book before, I don’t confidently recall who it is that Clarence has run into, but I have a sort of feeling that it’s not as bad as it might be. And it might be pretty bad, considering the last time Clarence unexpectedly ran into someone who recognised him, it was one of his old Juntavas colleagues, and he ended up having to shoot the guy.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 9

Frenzel
Chaliceworks Aggregations

In which Theo counts her blessings.

The placement of the scene with Kamele says something about the authors’ priorities. If it had appeared a few chapters ago, it would have contrasted obviously (perhaps a bit too obviously?) with the scene at Jelaza Kazone which reminds us that the person Kamele is going to Surebleak to see isn’t there, and nobody knows when he’ll be back. Placed here, it instead invites the reader to compare and contrast the strong-mindedness of mother and daughter. It also gives context, for readers who didn’t know it or had forgotten, for Theo’s musings about her family in the following scene.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 3

‘tween Jump

In which Bechimo discovers his errors.

I’m not sure what to make of the Morality module’s lack of interest. The point, maybe, is that Bechimo’s behaviour has been impolite, a breach of protocol, and against the rules, but not in itself immoral. The Morality module perhaps concerns itself with what is, and won’t worry about the possibility of the precedent leading to more extreme behaviour until it happens.

That’s an interesting note on the Warning about yos’Phelium: “Disruption of causality may occur, see notes.” It’s not an unfair warning, given the way the Luck flows around yos’Phelium, but it says something about the Builders that they believe in the phenomenon and that they express it in such terms.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 41

Starrigger’s Cafe
Mayflowerport

In which Daav consults an expert.

The Uncle doesn’t come right out and say it, of course, but that does appear to be an admission that he deliberately put Theo in harm’s way so that Bechimo would be obliged to come and rescue her.

His reminiscence about meeting Theonna yos’Phelium confirms the hints about him having survived in a series of bodies. It also suggests that each individual body has a longer than usual lifespan, since the body in which he met her was older than hers and yet lasted “long years” after she died. (On the other hand, maybe that says something instead about the lifespan of a delm of Korval.)

The mention that Theonna had “known his relationship to the shipyards of the independents” might be taken as another hint toward Bechimo‘s origins being tied into some of the background details of Trade Secret (Theonna would have been alive during the events of Trade Secret, if not yet delm), but we still have that definite statement at the beginning of this novel that Bechimo has been waiting far longer than that.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 35

Runcible System
Daglyte Seam

In which preparations are made for departure.

This is the first time in a while we’ve had a viewpoint looking at Theo with a fresh eye, and possibly the clearest description we’ve had of the appearance that had people warning her about her “attitude” back at the Academy. It’s interesting how some things are far more apparent to an outside viewpoint than from behind her eyes. (Like when her viewpoint says she “felt a flicker of irritation” and his says she “looked black death”.)

It’s also intriguing to have Clarence imply that her father has a similar attitude, since we’ve pretty much always seen him through his own eyes or the eyes of others who are familiar with him or at least with his family. Now I think of it, though, I can think of a few moments which support the point.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 28

Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which there are conversations on the way to dinner.

Luken’s reassurance to Theo – “You are among kin, now, and the House will be vigilant for you” – has, I think a double meaning. On one level, it’s the same thing people have been saying ever since she was invited to guest, that the house has good security and she’ll be protected from physical danger; on another level, I think it’s a reminder that as her kin it’s within their melant’i to protect her from the less obvious dangers attendant on making a social error.

It belatedly occurs to me that Jeeves has lately been referred to only as the head of house security, and not as a butler; of course this makes sense, since Trealla Fantrol no longer has need of a butler and at Jelaza Kazone the job is already ably filled by Mr pel’Kana.

It’s said of Luken that he is “grandfather to no one in this room”, which is less definite than I thought I remembered, leaving open the possibility that he has grandchildren elsewhere. One thing we can say about them, if they exist, is that they’re not counted as children of Korval, or they’d have appeared on a roster by now or been mentioned somewhere in all the arrangements resulting from the declaration of Plan B; perhaps their parent, Luken’s child, married out of the clan.

The scene with Pat Rin and Penn at the end seems like a bit of abrupt shift after the rest of the chapter, but I notice a thing which ties the scenes together (apart from them presumably happening on the same evening): the one scene has Theo remembering to be polite among Liadens by not shaking hands, and the other scene has Pat Rin remembering to be polite among Terrans by shaking hands.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 26

Bechimo

In which Bechimo gets his first introduction to Theo’s family.

Bechimo still hasn’t got the memo about being safe, but I suspect on some level he’s aware that Theo has a point and is being stubborn about it; the interplay with the Protocol module strikes me as the AI version of “knows he’s behaving badly and doesn’t care”. And even though he says that he’s only trying to do right by the wisdom of the Builders, I’m getting a definite flavour of “I know best”, or at least “I don’t trust anybody else to do this as well as me”, from his attitude.