Tarona Rusk
Auxiliary Services
In which Section Head Tarona Rusk catches up on the news of her department.
More details about the consequences of the Healing of Tarona Rusk, and more things whose absence was felt in Accepting the Lance. It’s going to be interesting, at some point in the future, to re-read this stretch of the series with Trader’s Leap included in chronological order, and see how much that changes how I feel about Accepting the Lance.
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Dutiful Passage
Approaching Jump
In which the Master Trader and his apprentice return to work.
According to my notes, this is the first substantial mention of Gordy — not counting a couple of times when people have mentioned him while running through the members of Clan Korval — since I Dare. I hadn’t realised it was that long.
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Tarona Rusk
Langlast Departure
In which Tarona Rusk takes stock of herself.
I think that when Tarona Rusk assumes that Shan intentionally set her up as a weapon against the Department, she’s making the usual mistake of the Department-trained of projecting their own methods and motives onto Korval. As accounted in Alliance of Equals, the two motivations for his actions that she dismisses out of hand are the two that were most on his mind at the time, and far from expecting her to take on the Department he expected her to want help staying away from them.
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Dutiful Passage
Langlast Departure
In which Shan and Padi get some rest.
Now we have some familiar faces, and a sense of where this story fits in the series. It’s only a day or two since the end of Alliance of Equals, so this is taking place around the same time as Neogenesis. (At least to start with.)
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In the Hall of the Mountain King
In which Vertu Dysan greets the new day.
With Toragin’s solution, the authors are doing a thing they’ve done a few times before: establishing the outline of the solution, but leaving the details to be filled in later in case a later story should suggest a particular detail.
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In the shadow of the Tree
In which the number of Vertu’s passengers increases again.
“Salmo’s Fire” is St. Elmo’s Fire, a weather phenomenon related to lightning; Yulie’s description of what it is and how it happens covers the basics. He doesn’t mention, since it’s outside his experience, but on Earth it’s particularly associated with the masts of ships, which is why it’s named after the patron saint of sailors.
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In the Hall of the Mountain King
In which Korval prepares to receive guests.
We have not previously encountered Finifter’s Shave, the ship that brought Toragin and Chelada to Surebleak, but the planet Finifter has been mentioned a couple of times. It’s one of the stops on Tan Sim’s trade route in Trade Secret, and one of the planets discussed in Culture Club in Saltation.
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A Rescue
In which the number of Vertu’s passengers increases.
Toragin’s remonstration at, presumably, the Tree gives us the outline of her cause: Chelada was promised that she could have her kittens under the Tree, which must have seemed an easy thing to promise when Jelaza Kazone was just down the road from Lazmeln’s clanhouse, and then when the distance suddenly became much greater, the promise still existed but was much harder to claim, and the Tree apparently didn’t find it necessary to ease the way at all.
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Beset in the belly of the storm
Enter Toragin, the blue-and-red driver, Chelada
In which Toragin del’Pemridj’s quest hits a detour.
A new act brings a new viewpoint character: Toragin del’Pemridj, Clan Lazmeln.
We’ve heard of Line del’Pemridj before: a Lady del’Pemridj was one of the guests at the garden party in “A Choice of Weapons”. And Clan Lazmeln: in Carpe Diem, when Shan was refusing absolutely to let Nova strong-arm him into a contract marriage, he mentioned that he’d been married twice already, once to Padi’s mother and the other time for clan-political reasons to someone from Clan Lazmeln.
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In the house of the taxi driver
Enter Vertu and Cheever
In which Vertu Dysan greets the new day.
The story is subtitled “A Minor Melant’i Play for Snow Season”, which offers a hint at what it’s likely to be about. Melant’i plays involve dramatic consquences revolving around points of correct behaviour; the examples we’ve had described seem to generally end with dead bodies, and sometimes with buildings burning to the ground.
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