Shipyear 65
Tripday 143
Fourth Shift
18.00 hours

In which Lina consults with a colleague.

A lot happens in a very little space in this chapter, but I don’t have much to say about it. Some of it is like Lina’s attempt to explain melant’i and her more successful word-picture of Lady Kareen, which I think are each respectively the first such published in the series, but both of which have in this chronological re-read been well and truly pre-empted by the prequels. Some of it is like Lina and Shan’s discussion of where he stands with regard to Priscilla, which falls into the area of things I’m just not good at talking about generally.

I do like the warmth and attention to detail in the depictions of Lina’s conversations with each of her friends in this chapter.

The mention of Lina’s interactions with Shan when his mother died and again when his father died suggest to me that he was on the Passage both times. Not that I believe he would shun her company when they were home on Liad, in the normal course of events, but a death in the family is not in the normal course of events, and the ones we’ve seen have generally been accompanied by withdrawing from social contact for the period of mourning.