Gobelyn’s Market, Franticle
In which Franticle True has many annoyances, both imported and home-grown.
“This Arin who is dead” is an interesting phrase. It might just be put that way through unfamiliarity with the language, but the way it’s put carries an implication that there might be other Arins of interest who are still alive.
I like the bit of interplay about not permitting a dependent to remain uninformed in a complex situation.
Tradedesk
In which the Scout has located Jethri’s logbook.
Given that the Scout has made his discovery after being seen speaking to the chel’Gaibin’s pilot, I feel confident in predicting that Wynhael‘s abrupt departure has some connection with the business which now brings on the departure of Jethri and the Scout. That thought doesn’t seem to have occurred to Jethri yet, though it has doubtless occurred to the Scout.
I’ve been wondering since Master Trader pin’Aker asked to speak to Tan Sim whether that was going to result in him offering to buy out Tan Sim’s contract. I’m currently entertaining a vision of Jethri and Samay getting hooked up in a contract marriage, simultaneously as a genuine strenghthening of bonds between Ixin and Midys and as an excuse for Samay’s uncle to give Tan Sim to Jethri as a wedding present. That’s just for my own amusement, though; it’s a bit too tidy to be plausible as an actual resolution.
Tradedesk, Dockside and More
In which networks are affirmed and expanded.
At Tradedesk Control, Jethri and the Scout make the acquaintence of Director ViChels Carresens, who is in charge of the station, and who shares a name with the Carresens Coordinating Committee that’s running the trade meeting.
Speaking of shared names: the ship he mentions that his family has donated for moving the station to its final position, Nubella Run, is one of those ships Paitor mentioned to Khat as being involved in whatever Arin Gobelyn was up to.
Speaking of shared names: along the way, Jethri overhears some pilots discussing another arrival whose name is doubly interesting. The new arrival bears the name of Omron, and is perhaps that same D. Omron who signed the invitation that brought Jethri here; and her given name is Dulsey, perhaps that same Dulsey who is an associate of the Uncle. If all the perhapses bear out, it would appear that the Uncle wishes to meet with Jethri…
And as if Jethri didn’t have enough to look forward to, there’s Samay pin’Aker, Clan Midys, who went to such trouble to accidentally meet him. (A familiar name, here: one of the students who facilitates Aelliana’s demonstration of practical probabilities in Scout’s Progress is a pin’Aker – and his partner is a ven’Deelin. No way of knowing whether that tells us anything useful about Samay, of course.)
Keravath, on Port, Balfour
In which Jethri and ter’Astin finish their business on Balfour and move on to their next destination.
Trouble indeed: somebody has been aboard the ship. Somebody who had a key, which they ought not to have had, and by the signs is a Scout. (Or an ex-Scout? I continue to cast suspicious looks in a very particular direction.)
Jethri’s meeting with the memorable Mr Dorster has turned up more of Iza’s neglect: basic documents and proofs of identity never completed or filed.
The Scout is also interested in the mysterious manifesto, “Arin’s Envidaria of the Seventeen Worlds”. As it is now too late to ask Freza more about it, Jethri merely tells him, truthfully but incompletely, that he never heard of it before today. The Seventeen Worlds are apparently a cluster of planets along the galatic arm where travel is unusually restricted by cosmic phenomena that are expected to last for the next few centuries; if Arin was taking the long view – and considering how old he probably was, it might not have seemed as long as all that – the Envidaria may involve a plan for how things will shift when the cosmic phenomena get out of the way. (And although “the next few centuries” is a pretty vague timespan, I can’t help noting that one plausible interpretation of a few centuries on from this novel puts us right about the time the next Liaden novel is due to be set…)
And now they are off to Vincza, where the Scout has hope for finding something and Jethri has been invited to a regional trade meeting (run by the Carresens Coordinating Committee, a name which rings a distinct bell: the Carresens are still trading in one of the later novels, and I seem to remember one of them mentioning Arin in a historical context, though I don’t recall what is said).
I wonder if Freza’s ship will also be attending the trade meeting. Not just because of the several reasons Jethri has for wanting to see her again, but also because the meeting’s being held in the system where they had their last, ill-fated meeting, and it would be kind of appropriate for it also to be the location of their next meeting, where hopefully they will fare better.
Keravath, on Port, Balfour
In which Jethri meets an old friend and a lawyer.
Jethri and ter’Astin have come to Balfour to meet some people. The Scout is to meet with some “specialists” (in which specialism, he does not specify), and Jethri is to meet with a lawyer, a trade law specialist who has had previous business with Elthoria, to explore the question of what can be done about his logbook being stolen.
Jay Rivenkid Dorster, Esquire, professional trade law specialist and free-lance stress-tester of furniture, is a real character. I may have said before that one of the things I like about this series is that many of the characters who only stick around on the page for a chapter or two have enough personality to stick around in the memory for much longer.
This is the first time Jethri’s been among Terrans since he shipped out with Elthoria, and he’s having some difficulty shifting smoothly back into dealing with Terran faces and Terran ways. I hope that doesn’t get him into any trouble.
The old friend he meets is Freza DeNobli, the young woman he might once have had a thing with if the scheduling had worked out. It seems like they’re both hoping the scheduling will work out a bit better this time. For now, though, the schedule only has room for a brief session of essential catching-up talk.
(It appears that there really is some kind of document bearing some resemblance to the thing yos’Belin was talking about last chapter – and to the information-share Paitor was telling Khat about a few chapters before. But I still think that the reason there’s no mention of it in the Commission’s records is that the Commission isn’t interested.)
I am not happy about the pair of workers Jethri sees moving around closer to the ship than they ought to be. That kind of thing too often means trouble one way or another.