Dutiful Passage
In which Padi makes connections and Shan receives news from home.
The looper families Shan mentions are among those who have appeared or been mentioned in the Jethri-era stories: the Smiths were the first family to have norbears travelling with them, the Tragers were friendly with Jethri’s family, and the Wildes did that ill-fated bit of experimenting with Old Tech.
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Civilization
In which Bentamin receives some good news from his aunt.
The Trade Council meeting shows that Shan was right about there being opportunities for trade in the Redlands System: even if they don’t manage to set anything up in the way of physical trade goods, they have something to offer in the way of up-to-date information about routes and conditions in the wider galaxy.
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Dutiful Passage
Millsap Orbit
In which Padi has a long day.
Shan has a plan: to visit the Redlands, which it turns out is not one country, or even one planet, but a system with three inhabited planets.
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Dutiful Passage
Millsap Orbit
In which Padi and Shan commune with inanimate objects.
This is a surprisingly long chapter and I’m up against a deadline, so I’m going to do it in two parts.
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Off-Grid
In which the counselors of the Haosa discuss visitors past and future.
I didn’t notice in the last Off-Grid chapter, until Skip pointed it out in the comments, that the narrative didn’t specify Tekelia’s gender. In this chapter, all the other Haosa are accompanied by masculine or feminine pronouns, but Tekelia remains undefined.
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Millsapport
In which the Healers of Millsap are unhelpful.
That went… about as well as I was expecting, really.
There were moments when I had hope it would go better, but the point at which I became convinced it was going to go off the rails was when Healer Ferin chose to ask the question “What did you do to deserve this?”, which is never an appropriate thing to say to a trauma victim under any circumstances and especially not when one is treating them for that trauma.
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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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Off-Grid
In which Tekelia vesterGranz has a lot of questions.
A few chapters ago, when I noted the Warden’s description of the Haosa as Civilization’s line of defence, I forgot to add that I suspected the Haosa would describe the relationship somewhat differently.
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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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Civilization
In which the Warden is told to expect visitors.
The Warden’s residence is apparently called the Wardian, which makes me think of the Edwardian era, or perhaps that’s just because Bentamin and his aunt remind me just a little bit of Bertie Wooster’s forceful aunts. (Not that Bentamin is much like Bertie Wooster, based on what we’ve seen so far.)
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