Tag Archives: Clan Tarnia

Trade Secret – Chapter 18

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Tradedesk, Gallery 770

In which it is always good to have news of kin.

The red bar, it appears, indicates a person who’s been invited to the traders’ after-dinner. That number includes, apart from Jethri and Grandma Ricky, Samay pin’Aker and Infreya chel’Gaibin, but not Bar Jan chel’Gaibin. With Infreya chel’Gaibin, instead of her son, is a pilot Jethri doesn’t recognise – perhaps Former Scout yos’Belin – wearing her red badge tag “slightly askew”, which may be an indication that she’s been adjusting the number and colour of tags from those to which she is properly entitled.

Jethri gets to learn some more of the things about his father that people assume he knows already. In this case, it’s about Uncle and Dulsey, and the fact that Arin looked as much like Uncle as Jethri looks like Arin. Which, as Jethri himself notes, is interesting.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 23

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Day 135
Standard Year 1118

Elthoria

In which Jethri discovers a foster-granmam.

The narrative seems determined to show me a liar in the matter of Jethri’s lucky fractin. If I were the paranoid type, I might wonder if the amount of time it was absent was carefully calculated so that it would reappear just as one was sure it was gone for good.

Vil Tor and Gaenor don’t entirely succeed in unlocking the approaching situation for Jethri; he still has an unpleasant surprise waiting. This is not their fault; being, as Jethri notes, Grounders, they’re not aware of all the Spacer assumptions Jethri is bringing to bear on his understanding of what he’s been told.

It seems to be significant that both Vil Tor and Gaenor touch Jethri on the shoulder as they say their farewells, since the narrator makes a point of mentioning it, and I’m aware that Liadens generally don’t go in for casual physical contact. I’m not sure what it’s significant of, though, unless just how close their friendship has become.

Incidentally, I’m intrigued by Vil Tor, whose family name is never mentioned; even in the cast list he is only “Vil Tor” and nothing else.