In which Val Con and Miri have a busy morning.
I like “a salute so smart it could have driven itself into town”. And Val Con’s interactions with the cat.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 20 part IV
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Tag Archives: Bechimo Less Pilot’s key
The Gathering Edge – Chapter 36
Bechimo
Bridge
In which there are some potential security issues.
We end this chapter with two meetings about to take place, and I’m not sure what to expect of either of them.
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The Gathering Edge – Chapter 14
Bechimo
In which the Captain speaks to her guests.
I like how the Pathfinders remain cautious of Theo and the crew; it makes sense for their position, but an author might have fallen into the trap of forgetting that and letting them trust easily just because we know the crew to be trustworthy.
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Dragon Ship – Chapter 37
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
In which the Galactic Trade Commission makes Theo an offer she can’t not refuse.
Something funny here: the outfit that gave Theo trouble in Ghost Ship was the Federated Trade Commission, not the Galactic Trade Commission. Maybe its name comes out differently in Trade than in Terran? Anyway, Theo says it’s the same group, and she’d presumably know. If it is the same, then it’s beginning to look like it has some kind of ongoing connection with the Department of the Interior, and Tokeoport wasn’t just a one-off case of a Department agent taking their name in vain.
Is this the first time B. Joyita has allowed anyone to see him stand up?
Dragon Ship – Chapter 34
Bechimo
In which Bechimo‘s crew assess the damage.
It occurs to me to wonder just what it means for a pocket of space to be empty. Most of space, by definition, consists of emptiness; what is it about this particular spot that makes it emptier than any other?
I’m also curious about the image Hevelin shows Win Ton of Theo dancing. That seems more like one of Win Ton’s memories than Hevelin’s; Theo wasn’t in the mood for joyous dancing the first time she met Hevelin, nor during the run to Codrescu and Velaskiz Rotundo that ended with Hevelin coming aboard. Although I suppose there’s still the trip from Velaskiz to Ynsolt’i, after Kara joined the crew; Theo might well have been in the mood to dance then.
I had been noticing that there have been more explicit mentions of the ship’s gravity in this book than is usual for the series. I suspect now it may have been leading up to this introduction of the Struven Unit which provides the ship’s gravity and is also connected somehow to the ship’s Jump ability. (I also suspect now that there’s some connection between the malfunctioning Struven Unit and the unusual behaviour of the flotsam.)
Dragon Ship – Chapter 33
Bechimo
In which Bechimo is concerned for the safety of his crew.
We lead off immediately with the important news: despite Bechimo’s concerns about the Remastering Unit being affected by the Department’s attack, Win Ton is all right.
Well, okay, the important news is that Bechimo is still in one piece, but that’s pretty much implicit in the news about Win Ton, right?
(As the chapter progresses, though, there are hints that maybe Win Ton’s recovery wasn’t entirely unaffected.)
I’d like to know a bit more about how Bechimo “extrapolated this location”. It makes sense that a place like this wouldn’t be somewhere you’d be able to learn the co-ordinates of from piloting records – for that matter, if the main appeal of it is that nobody else can find it, being able to find the co-ordinates in piloting records would be a disqualification – but extrapolated from what? while seeking the answer to what question?
Dragon Ship – Chapter 32
Ynsolt’i Approach
In which Ynsolt’i is back off the agenda.
My response to the Department’s claim of being “proper representatives of Liad” is a rude noise, but I wonder how much the Ynsolt’i authorities believe it.
The pilot from Metrose is another addition to the gallery of one-off characters who make an impression in a single brief appearance, the more impressively for appearing only as a voice. (That sentence was slightly trickier to put together than I expected when I began it, because I realised partway through that the pilot also belongs to the set of characters whom the authors have not burdened with gendered pronouns.)
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 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 39
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which there is good news and bad news.
Win Ton also knows who Clarence was, which is perhaps not surprising, since Win Ton is a Scout and the Scouts might be expected to have known who was doing what in their home port. What might be surprising is that, knowing who Clarence was, he’s so quick to trust him; part of that is probably that Theo trusts him, but it might also speak to a detailed knowledge of Clarence’s past: merely knowing Clarence’s old job description would probably be a count against him, but there have been better people and worse people to hold that job, and someone familiar with Clarence’s track record would know which side of the scale he was on.
Meanwhile, back on Surebleak, that quiet haven Theo was thinking fondly of while her crew were trying not to get blown up, Val Con has a metaphorical bombshell of his own to deal with…