Bechimo
Aubernet System
In which Bechimo arrives in a new place.
Lots of technical details in this chapter, which is impresive but not the kind of thing I personally find most entertaining to read or talk about.
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Tag Archives: interstellar travel
Ghost Ship – Chapter 38
Bechimo
Surebleak System
In which Clarence and Bechimo do some debugging.
A small detail I like in this chapter is that the segue back to Jelaza Kazone is used as an opportunity to slip in an extra detail about what Theo did with her time there when she wasn’t having fraught conversations with her new relatives.
I wonder if explaining to the ship why the pilot is angry is a standard part of the co-pilot’s duties.
I Dare – Chapter 48
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
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.
Agent of Change – Chapter 26 & Epilogue
In which the Yxtrang lose their prey and much else besides.
I’m not sure why Commander Khaliiz punishes his underlings for failing to ensure that the ship was empty after he’s accused Val Con of stealing their prize, which suggests that he’s aware of the possibility that Val Con and Miri arrived after the ship was emptied. Maybe he’s just making sure to cover all the bases, but it seems to me that an organization that can get away with harshly punishing people just in case they might have done something wrong is an organization that’s seriously flawed.
One thousandth of a light second, the safe radius for going into Jump, is approximately the distance between New York and Baltimore.
Agent of Change – Chapter 17
In which Miri and Val Con discuss weapons.
At first it seemed like a quick turnaround that, less than a day after Miri tried to ditch the madman, it’s her reassuring him that he’s not a danger to her. But there was that demonstration, after she tried to ditch him, of how much importance he places on her survival, and even before that it wasn’t really what she was concerned about. Even when she admitted to being afraid, she made the point that it wasn’t Val Con himself she was afraid of. And I think, on reflection, that when she was bothered by his first demonstration of the Loop’s capabilities, what bothered her wasn’t just the apparent calmness with which he was able to discuss her death, but the calmness with which he was able to discuss his own.
On an entirely different note, I find myself wondering whether Professor Thos. Swift, author of the Young Person’s Book of Space Drives, was a member of the same faculty as the originator of the Antonio Smith Method.
Agent of Change – Chapter 16
In which Miri and Val Con discover the fruits of the ship’s labors.
Among the things I keep thinking about, re-reading this novel, are the fact that it was the first to be written and published and the consequence that there are things in it which read differently with knowledge of the rest of the series.
For a small example, there’s the “obscure sense” that tells Miri without looking that Val Con has returned, which one might connect with Aelliana’s ability to tell without looking when Daav entered the room, and what that developed into.
Possibly a more significant example is Val Con’s explanation of the roles of First and Second Speaker, which — though it does clarify some of the questions we had about the succession back around “A Day at the Races” — completely fails to mention that there are such things as delms, or who might fill that role for Korval.
Agent of Change – Chapter 15
In which He Who Watches has an unpleasant day.
This chapter shows very clearly how much Val Con has come to care for Miri, even in the short time they’ve known each other. It also gives some indication how much she’s come to care for him, although she’s more reluctant to bring it out where people can see it, or to trust it (and who can blame her?).
Edger’s relation to Watcher, we learn, is that he is the brother of his mother’s sister. Which tells us something about the Clutch’s kinship system, because that’s a degree more specificity than would be necessary or meaningful among humans.
Saltation – Chapter 10
Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302
Anlingdin Piloting Academy
In which Theo studies the ven’Tura Tables.
The comment I made yesterday about how much Theo is learning about Korval lately would have gone better with this chapter, it turns out. Too late now.
This chapter has the most detailed explanation of anywhere in the series about what it is the ven’Tura Tables actually do. And it is, I think, another example of the authors having a better idea later, at least when it comes to the bit about the Caylon Revisions involving a reconsideration of the very mathematics underlying the Tables; Scout’s Progress gave the impression that the mathematics was sound and the revision was more in the way of checking for calculation and typesetting errors.
Chelly is back, although by the sound of it only until he can arrange to go somewhere far away. Which doesn’t entirely surprise me, after what he’s been through.
If the chain of command in the dorm room goes Senior, First Bunk, Second Bunk, I wonder what it is that distinguishes First Bunk from Second. Is there an actual judgement of aptitude involved, or is it arbitrarily based on something like “person who happened to pick the top bunk” or “first non-senior to move their luggage in”? If it’s one of the latter options, Asu has no call get in a snit about Theo being First Bunk, since she turned down the first choice of bunks herself. (And if there’s a judgement of aptitude involved, I think Theo’s the right choice; as Chelly says, Asu isn’t malicious but she doesn’t think.)
In fairness to Asu, I feel I should note that although Chelly is described as leaving his bags “where Asu could complain that she’d almost fallen over them when she came back”, Asu doesn’t in fact do any such thing.
Conflict of Honors – Chapter 27
Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Second Shift
6.00 hours
In which Sav Rid Olanek makes a countermove.
Just one of those details one notices: Near the beginning of the chapter, Priscilla wishes she might be told that she’d done something well, rather than the second mate’s understated “okay”. By the end of her chapter, she’s got her wish, although (as is so often the case with wishes) in circumstances that she might happily have foregone if given the choice.
One wonders precisely what instructions the mercenaries were given that their captain summarized as “he wanted you out of the race real bad”. I’d be inclined to assume that meant shoot-to-kill, but we were told earlier that death is not usually considered an appropriate way to achieve Balance, and I don’t think Sav Rid’s that far gone yet. Is he?