In which Admiral Bunter has a personal question.
I like the little bits where Tolly is appreciating Admiral Bunter’s grasp of non-verbal communication, but keeping it to himself so as not to derail the conversation.
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In which Val Con has tea with his brother’s sister.
No more character reintroductions in this section, only consolidating and expanding on the threads from the previous two sections.
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In which there are many meetings.
Many meetings, and more reintroductions, and an innocent request concerning grapes that may or may not turn into something larger.
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In which Petrella yos’Galan is diligent.
I had some things I was going to say about how I still didn’t understand why Chi is going to these lengths, but they’ve been rendered moot by the helpful person in the previous post’s comments who wished to spare me the trouble of waiting for the story to explain itself. So.
I like the discussion of the difference between offending nobody and offending everybody.
The thing Petrella thinks she remembers about Line pen’Uldra, which has not yet been revealed, is I suspect likely to be connected somehow with the fact of Fer Gun being the last of the Line.
Bechimo
Pathfinders’ Temporary Base
In which there’s more than one way to get an education.
If the occasion from which Hevelin is recalling Clarence’s voice occurred in one of the previous novels, I have failed to find it in a text search. No reason it couldn’t have happened off-page, of course.
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Bechimo
In which the ambassador greets Grakow and his attendants.
Between Hevelin petitioning for Tree Junior to be included in crew meetings, and the seed pod it gave Theo a little while back, I’m beginning to suspect that when they do eventually hand over Spiral Dance to Korval, Tree Junior is not planning to go with. That makes sense, come to think of it; unlike its parent, who’s had centuries to get used to being in one place, this tree still has fresh memories of travelling around having adventures with Jela and Cantra, and might want to stick with Theo and have more adventures.
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Healspace
In which yos’Galan does what needs to be done.
Noting that this chapter is all about Langlast, with nothing about Tolly and Admiral Bunter, I wonder if next chapter is going to be the inverse, and leave us waiting to find out what became of Padi.
I don’t quite understand what Padi’s disappearance signifies, but I don’t for a moment believe that she’s dead.
(I wonder where Lute has got to…)
Admiral Bunter
In which things are concealed.
Padi has finally had an opportunity to do the thing she was too-ready to do at the beginning of the novel, and found that she doesn’t like it.
As I follow Tolly’s reasoning, the problem is that there’s no certainty about what Admiral Bunter will do once the core mandate is removed. The Admiral says, now, that he trusts Tolly, and he might even mean it, now – but once Tolly has restored his freedom, he’ll be faced with the immediate situation of another person in a position to do him over the way Inki did, or worse, which is a definite problem. And, as Tolly says, the Admiral’s toolset for dealing with definite problems has historically tended toward immediate lethality as the best and only solution.
I’m a bit bemused that Tarona Rusk fell for Shan’s false compliance so easily. Partly, I suppose, it’s that she sees what she wants and expects to see; and also that what she sees of Shan is only what he wants her to see. I get the feeling that, for all she mocked him for being only a Healer, it’s his Healer training that’s giving him the advantage here.
The Garden of Gems
Langlastport
In which there are attacks from multiple sides.
It’s still not clear whether this is one set of co-ordinated attacks, or separate attacks in space and on land that happen to coincide. Once Tarona Rusk declared herself an agent of the Department, and the people seeking Padi likewise, I was prepared to conclude that the attack on the Passage was also the work of the Department; after all, as we’ve been reminded, attacks under cover of rightful customs activity are a thing they’ve done before. But then there’s Priscilla’s Seeing that one or more of the attacks is motivated by “some local chief’s bid for celebrity” – presumably Plishet. Perhaps Plishet is working with the Department because they’ve persuaded him they can give him something he wants?
I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve heard of a dramliz working for the Department voluntarily. It’s a fairly horrifying prospect.
The implication that Shan could have been a full dramliz if he had wanted to be is interesting, both in connection with the unfolding pattern of Lute’s lives and in light of his statement to Padi that it’s not possible to choose not to be dramliz.
Langlastport
In which Broker Plishet is not as clever as he thinks he is.
Here, one of the threads tying the two plot lines together is the consideration of melant’i.
On Padi’s side, there’s her awareness of the fact that her current melant’i is that of a peaceful trader, not of a pilot in a dangerous situation with several youngsters depending on her. (Which itself shows her development beginning from the beginning of the novel, when she was inclined to fall back into that familiar melant’i whenever uncertain.)
I’m not sure how much furtherer Admiral Bunter is going to get in his studies by turning to melant’i plays; I get the impression, from earlier mentions, that they tend toward extreme situations of the kind where a person is so hedged about by necessity that the only way forward is the death of their dearest friend or whatever. (Recall that Anne in Local Custom was guided somewhat in her understanding of Er Thom by the Liaden literature she’d read, and didn’t always find it a useful guide.) I’m also a bit dubious about his choice of illustrious expert, who by his name is Terran rather than Liaden; on top which is the characterisation of melant’i plays as “exotic”. Then again, the Admiral is himself an outsider to Liaden culture, so perhaps an outsider’s description is what he would find useful.