Tag Archives: Iza Gobelyn

Trade Secret – Chapter 30

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Gobelyn’s Market, Clawswitts

In which the Gobelyns receive news of kin.

So that’s why Jethri suddenly decided he needed to send a message to Freza.

Apart from the trade and economic factors, which I don’t feel qualified to judge, one useful effect of publishing the Envidaria that Jethri must have considered is that the Liadens will have to stop bugging his friends and family for a copy. (Whether they’ll believe, among themselves, that the published Envidaria is the real thing, is another matter – I suspect those Liadens inclined to believe in Terran trickery will consider this more of the same – but at least they’ll have to act in public as if they believe it.)

And it looks like I was wrong (again) about Ynsolt’i. I think, looking back, that I’ve been tending to get predictions wrong about this book by tending toward being too neat and tidy. Life don’t always go in for quick and tidy endings to things.

Speaking of things in life that aren’t neat and tidy, I’ve got some of my sympathy for Iza back. She’s a complicated woman, is Iza Gobelyn.

Trade Secret – Chapter 27

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Port Chavvy

In which Bar Jan chel’Gaibin gets what he traded for.

What little eloquence I normally have deserts me, and I have just one thing to say: Yes!

I like Jethri’s response when chel’Gaibin doubts that he is covered by the Code.

“All I ask is an honest advantage” has a polished sound to it, but if it’s a quote from somewhere else I’m not familiar with it.

Trade Secret – Chapter 26

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Port Chavvy

In which there are many secrets.

This is another chapter that calls for the reminder that I do appreciate the emotional parts of the Liaden stories, but I’m not very good at talking about them.

Some of the things Freza tells Jethri about the intent of Arin’s Envidaria remind me again of the conversation Theo has with the Carresens of her time. (Though that doesn’t help as much as it might, because I don’t quite recall what the Carresens actually said.)

When the dateline said “Port Chavvy”, I said to myself, “That sounds familiar, has someone mentioned it earlier this book?” – and then there was Dulcimer, and Klay Patel Smith sitting by the equipment rack. So apparently I was wrong when I guessed “Out of True” was set earlier than the Jethri books, having underestimated how unfamiliar a sight Liadens are in parts of Terran space. In fact, there are several things about “Out of True” I understand better having read (this much of) Trade Secret, and I think I would recommend to a new reader that they read Trade Secret first and then “Out of True”.

Trade Secret – Chapter 24

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Gobelyn’s Market

In which the Gobelyns keep an eye out for trouble.

One of the commenters remarked, back when we were reading Balance of Trade, that she wondered how Iza had continued to be captain. I was inclined at the time to give Iza the benefit of the doubt, since we hadn’t seen much of her and that not at her best, but the more we see of her the less room for doubt there’s getting to be. This chapter, one of the crew goes so far as to express (out loud, though not in Iza’s hearing) a hope that Iza will think to step down, but it seems they don’t think the case is bad enough to ask her outright.

Yet.

In other news, the stuff about the difficulties of navigation in a four-star system is interesting, for those who are interested in that kind of thing, and may be a warm-up for a discussion of the difficulties of navigating the Seventeen Worlds later.

I don’t like the way the Liadens are paying attention to them, and I don’t like the way the chapter ends with “and then the door opened”. That could lead to “so they stopped talking and went in”, but it could just as easily lead on to “revealing, to their shocked gaze, …” (So far, though, I am being good and not going straight on to the next chapter.)

Trade Secret – Chapter 18

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Tradedesk, Gallery 770

In which it is always good to have news of kin.

The red bar, it appears, indicates a person who’s been invited to the traders’ after-dinner. That number includes, apart from Jethri and Grandma Ricky, Samay pin’Aker and Infreya chel’Gaibin, but not Bar Jan chel’Gaibin. With Infreya chel’Gaibin, instead of her son, is a pilot Jethri doesn’t recognise – perhaps Former Scout yos’Belin – wearing her red badge tag “slightly askew”, which may be an indication that she’s been adjusting the number and colour of tags from those to which she is properly entitled.

Jethri gets to learn some more of the things about his father that people assume he knows already. In this case, it’s about Uncle and Dulsey, and the fact that Arin looked as much like Uncle as Jethri looks like Arin. Which, as Jethri himself notes, is interesting.

Trade Secret – Chapter 17

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Tradedesk

In which Jethri goes to dinner.

Jethri’s badge has three colour codes on it: green, indicating he’s a trader; blue, indicating he’s a pilot; and red, which we still haven’t been told what it means. The fact that Grandma DeNobli picks a table under the red banner to eat at suggests a couple of possibilities.

One of the things on offer at the dinner is bloosharie – the third different spelling for it in as many books.

It being a dress-up sort of occasion, Jethri’s wearing the firegem ring that he bought in the prologue and which hasn’t been mentioned since. I wonder if, with all these people around, someone’s going to take an interest in it.

Trade Secret – Chapter 13

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Keravath, on Port, Balfour

In which Jethri and ter’Astin finish their business on Balfour and move on to their next destination.

Trouble indeed: somebody has been aboard the ship. Somebody who had a key, which they ought not to have had, and by the signs is a Scout. (Or an ex-Scout? I continue to cast suspicious looks in a very particular direction.)

Jethri’s meeting with the memorable Mr Dorster has turned up more of Iza’s neglect: basic documents and proofs of identity never completed or filed.

The Scout is also interested in the mysterious manifesto, “Arin’s Envidaria of the Seventeen Worlds”. As it is now too late to ask Freza more about it, Jethri merely tells him, truthfully but incompletely, that he never heard of it before today. The Seventeen Worlds are apparently a cluster of planets along the galatic arm where travel is unusually restricted by cosmic phenomena that are expected to last for the next few centuries; if Arin was taking the long view – and considering how old he probably was, it might not have seemed as long as all that – the Envidaria may involve a plan for how things will shift when the cosmic phenomena get out of the way. (And although “the next few centuries” is a pretty vague timespan, I can’t help noting that one plausible interpretation of a few centuries on from this novel puts us right about the time the next Liaden novel is due to be set…)

And now they are off to Vincza, where the Scout has hope for finding something and Jethri has been invited to a regional trade meeting (run by the Carresens Coordinating Committee, a name which rings a distinct bell: the Carresens are still trading in one of the later novels, and I seem to remember one of them mentioning Arin in a historical context, though I don’t recall what is said).

I wonder if Freza’s ship will also be attending the trade meeting. Not just because of the several reasons Jethri has for wanting to see her again, but also because the meeting’s being held in the system where they had their last, ill-fated meeting, and it would be kind of appropriate for it also to be the location of their next meeting, where hopefully they will fare better.

Trade Secret – Chapter 12

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Keravath, on Port, Balfour

In which Jethri meets an old friend and a lawyer.

Jethri and ter’Astin have come to Balfour to meet some people. The Scout is to meet with some “specialists” (in which specialism, he does not specify), and Jethri is to meet with a lawyer, a trade law specialist who has had previous business with Elthoria, to explore the question of what can be done about his logbook being stolen.

Jay Rivenkid Dorster, Esquire, professional trade law specialist and free-lance stress-tester of furniture, is a real character. I may have said before that one of the things I like about this series is that many of the characters who only stick around on the page for a chapter or two have enough personality to stick around in the memory for much longer.

This is the first time Jethri’s been among Terrans since he shipped out with Elthoria, and he’s having some difficulty shifting smoothly back into dealing with Terran faces and Terran ways. I hope that doesn’t get him into any trouble.

The old friend he meets is Freza DeNobli, the young woman he might once have had a thing with if the scheduling had worked out. It seems like they’re both hoping the scheduling will work out a bit better this time. For now, though, the schedule only has room for a brief session of essential catching-up talk.

(It appears that there really is some kind of document bearing some resemblance to the thing yos’Belin was talking about last chapter – and to the information-share Paitor was telling Khat about a few chapters before. But I still think that the reason there’s no mention of it in the Commission’s records is that the Commission isn’t interested.)

I am not happy about the pair of workers Jethri sees moving around closer to the ship than they ought to be. That kind of thing too often means trouble one way or another.

Trade Secret – Chapter 10

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Keravath‘s Second Cabin, in Jump

In which Jethri watches.

My working hypothesis about the indicator that shows a band of color for the Scout and just a sliver of pink for Jethri is that it has something to do with dramliz abilities. We know from last novel that the Scout has some capabilities in that area, while Jethri hasn’t shown any signs, unless it’s in his knack for salvage lots.

Seeing as it’s turning out there was something more to young Jethri’s make-believe trade route, and remembering that the Scout has spent time studying the logbook he planned it out in, I don’t think it’s just coincidence that all the Jump targets the Scout has set Jethri to practice with are stops on the route.

Also, it sounded from last chapter like Paitor was wanting the Market to try the route out. If they’re both going to be hitting the same set of destinations, chances are they’ll cross paths somewhere along the way.