Tag Archives: Initha

Fledgling – Chapter 39

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Melchiza Station

In which Theo and Kamele start for home, Jen Sar enters the home stretch, and Hafley can never go home again.

Clyburn stops pretending to be the kind of bubble-headed male no Delgadan would suspect of being a criminal mastermind, and is revealed to be, among other things, a pilot. Which suggests further covering-up from his relative in Admin, since he wasn’t issued a pilot’s ID when the research team arrived. It also makes me wonder again about the divided motivations of the blue-shirts: if he’s a pilot and a native Melchizan he must have known enough about how Melchizan pilots think to be able to predict that they’d protect Theo. Although that assumes he knew Theo was a pilot, and I get the impression that came as an unpleasant surprise to him on the bus; apparently he wasn’t paying enough attention to Theo on the Vashtara to notice how she’d been spending her time. He must be kicking himself for that now (or, if he’s the kind of person who is never at fault for their own lapses of judgement, finding some excuse to blame Theo).

For all the trouble it’s caused in the past, Theo’s pilot nature has been really helpful several times this trip, both in obvious ways like protecting her at the Transit School and in indirect ways like leading her into a situation where she can, unlike the sheltered Kamele, recognise violent intent in time to avoid danger.

Fledgling – Chapter 37

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Melchiza
City of Treasures

In which Theo is getting along better than might have been expected.

I have a suspicion that Hafley is telling the truth when she says that she would have had Beltaire come along, given the choice, but not with the motive she suggests. Until the research team produces solid evidence, Beltaire’s observations are the key to their case, and if she were to come along on an interplanetary journey you never know but that something might happen to her — even without the hints we’ve been getting that something is likely to happen to her in any case if she ever returns to Melchiza.

Her accusation that Kamele is too ambitious, on the other hand, is a classic case of accusing one’s opponent of one’s own sins.

I think I see, now, what the point of having Theo assigned to the Parole Class was: So that it could be revealed at an appropriate moment in an attempt to make Kamele abandon her research and rush off to rescue Theo — which would probably, given the security set-up, only be possible if the whole research team agrees to leave the archive with her, thereby bringing the research trip to an end — or else to reduce her usefulness to the research effort by distracting her if she does remain in the archive. (An appropriate moment being one after Hafley’s cover has already been blown to such an extent that it won’t be giving anything away to reveal that she has secret knowledge about what’s been happening to Theo.) I don’t think it’ll work, though, precisely because Hafley’s accusation of ambition isn’t true; Kamele is here in service of a greater cause than her own ambition, and knows that she can’t turn away now even for Theo’s sake. I doubt she’s going to be badly distracted, either; she’s already proven that she’s made of sterner stuff than Hafley thinks, and I suspect Hafley’s just given her more reason to concentrate on getting the job done.

Fledgling – Chapter 36

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Melchiza
Transit School

In which Theo and Kamele make progress.

On Melchiza, pilots are recognised as rare and special people, and apparently this means that Melchizan pilot culture is affected by the Melchizan attitude that leaders should stand aloof and not hold themselves back trying to help others less special. Inspector Vidige’s lesson about a pilot bearing sole responsibility for the decisions he must make is not entirely new (I’m particularly reminded of Aelliana in Scout’s Progress, and the lesson that she must learn to back her own judgement if she wishes to be a pilot), but the emphasis is different. At least it’s somewhat softened by Pilot-Instructor Arman’s comment which suggests that Melchizan pilots do form bonds of loyalty with their crew (like the brother’s friends in the folk tale?); self-sufficiency is one thing, but if they’d been taking it to the extent of not even trusting a co-pilot that would have been asking for serious trouble sooner or later.