Tag Archives: Gondola

Dragon Ship – Chapter 33

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Bechimo

In which Bechimo is concerned for the safety of his crew.

We lead off immediately with the important news: despite Bechimo’s concerns about the Remastering Unit being affected by the Department’s attack, Win Ton is all right.

Well, okay, the important news is that Bechimo is still in one piece, but that’s pretty much implicit in the news about Win Ton, right?

(As the chapter progresses, though, there are hints that maybe Win Ton’s recovery wasn’t entirely unaffected.)

I’d like to know a bit more about how Bechimo “extrapolated this location”. It makes sense that a place like this wouldn’t be somewhere you’d be able to learn the co-ordinates of from piloting records – for that matter, if the main appeal of it is that nobody else can find it, being able to find the co-ordinates in piloting records would be a disqualification – but extrapolated from what? while seeking the answer to what question?

Dragon Ship – Chapter 6

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Frenzel Port

In which presences make themselves known.

It would appear that Clarence is correct about the mysterious crowd being pitchmen and freeposters coming out from hiding in response to the Arrival Director’s departure, but my first thought was that they’d appeared in response to Theo’s attempt to disappear, like maybe they’d been standing in plain sight the whole time using the same technique, and using the technique herself had made them visible to Theo. Which would have been worrying, because it reminds me of the time back in Carpe Diem when Shadia discovered that there were more people surrounding her ship than there ought to be, and that time it was because she was being hunted by the Department.

I find myself wondering whether Clarence’s insistence on addressing Bechimo as “Chimmy” is part of an attempt to get Bechimo to address him as something other than “Less Pilot”.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 37

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Bechimo
Surebleak System

In which the Department of the Interior have left a few nasty surprises.

I’m not sure what it is that Clarence finds amusing about Theo’s observation on his piloting, but I suspect it might be the inherent incongruity of being given encouraging feedback by someone who wasn’t yet born when he achieved his first class license. It could also be that he’s aware that she’s not giving him a complete answer about what she was thinking, since the part she does tell him doesn’t account for the in-drawing of breath that attracted his attention in the first place.

The location of Pod 78 does seem rather unfortunate, and raises again the still-unanswered question of what it’s doing there in the first place.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 16

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Tokeoport

In which Theo is separated from her ship.

The woman with the too-large jacket and the too-large gunbelt harks back to the previous chapter, where the two robbers saw Theo’s too-large jacket and speculated that it was a “trophy”.

In the news report, a car containing a driver, cook and gardener in the employ of Korval returned “immediate fatal return fire” to a hostile action involving a former under-boss and an unspecified number of “backers”. Unless the driver was particularly fast on the draw, I suspect that means the cook and the gardener were also armed.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 14

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Arin’s Toss
In Transit

In which the Uncle has a job for Theo and the Colonel has a job for Clarence.

I’m still suspicious about what the Uncle is up to. Giving Theo a course change while she’s en route means that anybody who might have been paying attention to the flight plan she filed won’t know about her side trip, and might suggest that he has reason to suspect that somebody is paying such attention. The amendment won’t do anything to help Theo evade pursuit, though, since it still ends with her arriving at Ploster in the time frame that the Department is expecting her to arrive. More likely is that the Uncle is only interested in helping himself, and hiding his interest in whatever might be waiting at Tokeo.

We were told in the first chapter of this book how long Bechimo has been on the lam, so the mention of the tales being “older than the Plan” might give us a limit on how old the Department is. Or it might just mean that there have always been ghost ship tales, and in Bechimo‘s case they just happen to be true. In any case, it’s not much of a limit, since it’s far enough back to comfortably include every mention in the prequels of what might be the Department. (Although, since we’re doing comparisons, it still makes Bechimo a couple of centuries younger than Jeeves, and a couple more centuries younger than Edger.)

I’m a mite puzzled by Max, the tug pilot with the colourful hair. Pat Rin’s round-up of pilots in I Dare included Surebleak Port’s tug pilot with colourful hair, but her name was Dostie Welsin.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 13

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Clarence has a warning for Daav.

The comment that “the Department is a larger enterprise than even its operatives had guessed” is intriguing. I believe it, especially with the recent reminder that its operatives work in their own little boxes, not knowing or caring about the details of what everyone else in the organisation is doing. But does this mean there’s even more to the Department’s Plan than we’ve been told? (Conversely, if we’ve been told everything, what have the operatives been told?) And if the Department’s own operatives don’t have the whole picture, who does?

I take it that Daav’s anecdote about Andy Mack repurposing old company equipment is meant to convey that the Colonel is not only a practical man, but possesses the kind of practicality Clarence is in need of, that will not pay too much attention to credentials if they’re inconvenient. One suspects that not all, if any, of the equipment he’s been repurposing was, speaking strictly according to the paperwork, his to repurpose.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 12

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Clan Korval looks to the future.

Jelaza Kazone is currently housing all the members of the Clan, excepting the children and the two adults who are with them, and they are ten in number. That would be Daav, Val Con, Miri, Pat Rin, Natesa, Shan, Priscilla, Nova, Anthora, and Ren Zel: ten. Doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already, but does confirm that there aren’t any extra members of the Clan everybody’s forgotten to mention.

And just when they’re beginning to feel they’ve got their feet under them, in walks Clarence O’Berin, whose presence surely portends something, though whether good or bad remains to be seen.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 11

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Mozart’s Modicum
Starport Gondola

In which Theo picks up an antiquity and a tail.

Theo, as is perhaps only to be expected from someone raised on a Safe World, isn’t really up to speed on what might be involved in a situation like this. As the operative tailing her notes, she doesn’t realise she might need to take precautions against people like him, and although it’s good that she does notice she’s being followed, it’s not so good that she thinks confronting the tail directly is a good idea, and she’s too ready to take his explanation at face value and assume the problem is dealt with. It’s there in the meeting at the teahouse, too; it’s good that she started to leave when her contact didn’t give the right recognition signal, but if she really understood why elaborate recognition signals might be necessary in the first place, she’d have kept going no matter what her contact said next.

It’s enough to make one wonder what the Uncle was thinking, sending her out so unprepared. Did he underestimate the influence of her upbringing, and assume that a pilot with her reputation would know these things? Or does he want her to get into trouble?

The tea Theo orders, Joyful Sunrise, is the same high-grade blend Daav gives Master dea’Cort as a joke in Scout’s Progress.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 10

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Spaceport Gondola
Gondola

In which old machines make their presence felt.

That’s the trouble with signing on with the Uncle. On the up side, he has an interest in old things that’s useful for dealing with the Bechimo situation. On the down side, that same interest means that associating with him is not exactly keeping a low profile when it comes to certain other people who have an interest in old things like Bechimo.

When Priscilla was trying to find out about Tactical Defense Pod 77, Pod 78 was the only other one of the series listed as still active, with a cryptic notation she didn’t have time to follow up at the time.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 9

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Runcible System
Daglyte Seam

In which the Department of the Interior prepares to attack Korval and her allies.

I like the structure of this chapter. Three scenes that have no obvious connection, but implicitly the latter two scenes concern people who are going to be affected by the events of the first.

It occurs to me to wonder what would have happened if Commander of Agents had chosen to leave Korval alone for the time being. Her concern is obviously that Korval will continue to be a threat, but Korval has accepted Liad’s decision that guarding Liad is no longer its business, which means that the Department is no longer its business – but the Department will quickly become its business again if the Department attacks it directly. I suppose if the Department did leave Korval alone and concentrate on subverting Liad, Korval would eventually become involved because it does still have allies on Liad who would sooner or later be affected by the Department’s actions – but think how much the Department could get done in the mean time!