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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.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 22

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In which thought is given to the future.

Apparently we are not to discover just yet what has become of Rys.

Ms ker’Eklis seems to be in a bad mood; perhaps she resents her dinner being put back. As a Liaden, she ought to know about necessity, but perhaps she thinks a boy’s necessity is not as necessary as an adult math tutor’s. Or perhaps, to be fair, it’s only that she doubts this particular boy, since about half the mentions of Syl Vor’s tutors in the book so far have been because he’s running late for his lessons for one reason or another.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 12

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In which Rys awakens.

It seems that Silain’s guest is Rys Lin pen’Chala, agent of the Department of the Interior last seen heading for the warehouse district, where he apparently found something other than the safe hidey-hole he was looking for. He’s lost enough of his memory to be unsure where he is or how he got here, enough apparently to have lost the memory of working for the Department, but doesn’t seem to have lost all of his Department indoctrination with it – at least, assuming that his terror of Korval is an artifact of the Department and not part of either of the more peaceful-seeming life times he remembered as he woke. (And the irony is, it wasn’t Korval who left him broken-bodied on the doorstep of the Bedel; Korval would have tried to prevent it.)

Miri does Delm Korval really well for someone who’s come to it so recently and had little chance to practice. (Or is that true? It’s been nearly a year now since she and Val Con became delm, and they probably had to work it quite a bit during the Korval’s last few months on Liad.) In any case, we’ve seen people who’ve been delm longer than she’s been alive who don’t do it nearly so well.

I wonder what it says about me that I listen the story of Riva and what I think is: Okay, so horse twelve lost very thoroughly – but, just out of interest, how did horse seven do?

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 4

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In which Kezzi listens, and Syl Vor listens.

I like the bit where Val Con tells Syl Vor about Swan Lake, translating the concepts into their nearest Liaden equivalents as he goes.

(I also like the preceding bit with the music, but not in a way I can find specific words for.)

Kezzi summons Malda by snapping her fingers, which is not the way dogs are generally summoned where I live. It might just be a cultural difference without specific significance. On the other hand, remembering that we’ve already been told the Bedel summoning bell was designed to be difficult to hear beyond their walls, it occurs to me that a snap – compared to, say, a whistle or a voice call – would be less likely to carry to unfriendly ears, and less likely to impress itself on such ears as a sound of definitely human origin.