Tag Archives: Fortune’s Reward

Hidden Resources

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Runig’s Rock

In which the treasures of the Clan are brought home.

The youngsters of the clan start to become involved in events, and show individual personalities. (Some of them, anyway. Though Shindi and Mik can probably be excused, considering their age.)

The obvious question is: what was that other ship waiting for? My guess is, it was waiting for Natesa. That is, not for her specifically, but for whoever might come to bring news of Korval’s situation, thereby increasing the number of Korval’s children who could be captured in one swoop.

(Another possibility is that there was some reason why they needed to watch someone actually pass through the outer defences before they made their attack; perhaps to check that they’d identified the number and location of all the defences. Against that is the fact that they apparently didn’t hang around to watch Natesa pass through the outer defences, but left to avoid being caught hanging around – which is interesting in itself, because it suggests they had some way of knowing she was coming.)

Another question is: If they hadn’t waited, and had attacked the Rock before Natesa arrived, would they have had any better success? I’m not sure they would; Luken is no Natesa, but it wouldn’t do to underestimate him.

Tomorrow: “Kin Ties”

I Dare – Chapter 55

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Solcintra
Liad

In which the Captain acts for the safety of the passengers.

The mode of Ultimate Authority, which is referred to twice in this chapter, has, perhaps unsurprisingly, not come up much before: three times in the series up to this point. Priscilla adopts it briefly when putting Sav Rid Olanek in his place at the end of Conflict of Honors; Commander of Agents is said in Carpe Diem to use it when dealing with his underlings; and Val Con, greeting the Tree in Plan B, places the Tree in the position of ultimate authority.

The fact that it’s used twice in this chapter, and by whom, is the central conflict in a nutshell: the first is Commander of Agents again, and the second is Miri when she takes on the melant’i of Liad’s Captain. And I think it says something that, whereas Miri adopts the mode temporarily and in a situation where she is in fact the duly-appointed ultimate authority until the emergency is resolved, the Commander is not only self-appointed but apparently expects to be regarded as the ultimate authority all the time.

There’s a leap near the end of the chapter that I’ve never been able to follow. After the doomsday weapons are activated, ter’Fendil says he can deactivate them if Val Con gives him the control device, and Val Con does. Then it cuts to another scene, and when it cuts back everybody’s running for their lives and talking about the urgent need to do something before the weapons break out and start killing everybody. Is there something missing, or is it just me missing something?

I Dare – Chapter 53

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Day 53
Standard Year 1393

Surebleak

In which Pat Rin prepares to take the fight to the enemy.

I was surprised at first that Natesa wasn’t going with Pat Rin, but of course it’s the same principle as only one portmaster going on the shopping trip. Somebody’s got to stay and mind the store, the more so if there’s a risk that anyone who goes won’t be coming back.

Here’s a small amusing thing: For once, the number at the head of the chapter matches the chapter number; it’s Day 53 and Chapter 53.

I Dare – Chapter 50

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Day 47
Standard Year 1393

Surebleak Port

In which Pat Rin need not suffer the indignity of having his license pulled.

And now Pat Rin has about caught up with the end of Plan B. Specifically, this chapter is in the six-day gap between the climactic penultimate chapter and the final epilogue-sort-of chapter. In fact, these last few Pat Rin chapters from the arrival of the Juntavas courier on, this section which might be regarded as the climax of Pat Rin’s subplot, fits so neatly into that six-day gap that one might believe it was designed that way. (Especially if one vaguely recalled having heard somewhere that Pat Rin’s subplot was originally intended to be part of Plan B.)

I Dare – Chapter 48

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Day 47
Standard Year 1393

Surebleak Space

In which Boss Conrad defends Surebleak.

Interesting that the Department’s demand to prepare for boarding is given in Trade instead of Liaden. My interpretation is that they wanted to make sure the pilot could understand it, and, presuming that Cheever was the pilot, didn’t expect him to be able to understand Liaden. (And just now I can’t remember whether Cheever actually can.)

I wonder who named the asteroid mining ships. There’s a striking amount of variety in the names.

I also wonder, now I come to think of it, who added armaments to Fortune’s Reward. They seem to have come as a surprise to Pat Rin and to Natesa, which argues against them having been added during the preparations for the project at hand, at the same time the ship was being renamed. That the weapon controls announced themselves when the ship accepted Pat Rin as pilot suggests that Fortune’s Reward has been armed all along and nobody saw fit to mention it while there wasn’t a pilot of Korval at the controls; that seems like a Korval sort of precaution.

I Dare – Chapter 47

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Day 45
Standard Year 1393

Sherzer System

In which Boss Conrad goes on an outing with some pilots.

I’m not surprised, on reflection, to see Portmaster Borden among the pilots; makes sense a portmaster would be a pilot himself. Portmaster Liu is probably a pilot as well, but somebody’s gotta stay home and mind the store. I wonder how they decided who’d go and who’d stay. Flipped a coin for it? Or maybe Liu let Borden go because he’s the one who’s always upset about never having anything to do.

I want to know more about the “alternative courses of education” Er Thom offered the young Pat Rin: what they were, and why Pat Rin rejected them. I can think of several possibilities, but I’m not sure which best fits Pat Rin and Er Thom. One possibililty I’m pretty confident in rejecting is “education in useful non-piloting careers, which Pat Rin rejected because they weren’t piloting”; it’s clear that Pat Rin had already accommodated himself to the idea of not being a pilot. A more interesting idea is that they were not alternatives to being a pilot, but alternative ways of learning to be a pilot, since the family’s usual methods had failed – which Pat Rin rejected… why? The narration makes a point of mentioning that they were all offworld, which suggests several answers: perhaps Pat Rin just didn’t want to live anywhere but Liad (seems unlikely, stated so baldly); perhaps he feared the clan was trying to hide their non-pilot away from polite society; perhaps he’d already come to believe, as in “Heirloom”, that he was an unproductive load on the clan, and didn’t want the family to waste money sending him away for an education he was convinced would come to nothing.

I Dare – Chapter 22

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Day 309
Standard Year 1392

Blair Road
Surebleak

In which the new boss gets to know the territory.

One of the many victims of the epidemic Pat Rin is told about in this chapter was Miri’s grandmother; she mentions it to Val Con back in Agent of Change.

Ms Audrey thinks she’s joking about Pat Rin deciding it’s too cold and installing central heating in the streets, but he’ll be making plans to very similar effect by the end of the book.

I Dare – Chapter 12

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Day 287
Standard Year 1392

Departing Teriste

In which Pat Rin meditates upon his requirements.

I like the interplay around Pat Rin’s earring; no doubt what Natesa says is true, but I think there is also an unsaid recognition that Pat Rin is reluctant to part with the earring for reasons unrelated to its monetary value.

Presumably it is Korval’s Luck once more at work that points Pat Rin in the direction of Surebleak, where a person “can get lost and never looked for”, the same Surebleak where a person who had been lost and never looked for was recently rediscovered by another of Korval.

Tomorrow: A one-day diversion, for “Daughter of Dragons”.

I Dare – Chapter 10

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Day 286
Standard Year 1392

Teriste MidPort
Panake House, Field of Fire, Speculator’s Trust

In which Pat Rin meets she who is called, among other things, Natesa the Assassin.

We’ve heard the name of Natesa the Assassin quite recently: she was mentioned in “Quiet Knives” as one of the Juntavas judges who had made herself scarce to avoid the disfavor of the late Chairman Krogar. And there was another Natesa way back in “Veil of the Dancer”, which may be part of the reason why I often have trouble remembering which of those two stories is which.

LaDemeter is another name we’ve encountered before: the handgun Theo won by right of conquest shortly before being thrown off Eylot was also a LaDemeter design. To some readers, the name also rings a different bell: it’s a shout-out to the classic Lensmen space opera series, in which the hero’s ray gun of choice was the DeLameter. (It is thus an amusing twist that Cheever’s LaDemeters, rather than being futuristic ray guns, are powered by the classic process of combustible powder.)

I Dare – Chapter 4

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Day 284
Standard Year 1392

Departing McGee

In which Cheever offers a lesson in piloting.

Cheever is clearly of a mind to keep poking at the boundaries of Pat Rin’s Not-A-Pilot-ness. Pat Rin doesn’t expect anything to come of it, since the best pilots in Korval (which are among the best pilots anywhere) haven’t been able to make anything of him, but it seems to me that Cheever might have a chance precisely because he’s not of Korval, and therefore not family, and their interactions are not weighed down by shared history: different approach, maybe leading to different results.

(Pat Rin is in his early forties now, which means he’s had a lot of time to get used to being Not A Pilot. Indeed, it means he’s been Not A Pilot for more than half his life.)