Tag Archives: Janifer Carresens-Denobli

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 3

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Dutiful Passage

In which Padi has a lesson to learn.

I raise an eyebrow at Padi’s dismissal of things that serve no purpose other than looking pretty. Apart from the error she’s making of assuming that “I see no purpose to this” is the same as “There is no purpose to this”, it seems shortsighted for one who aspires to be a trader: even if a thing’s only value lies in looking pretty, it still has value that may be usefully leveraged or may cause problems if ignored. People value the things they value, for whatever reason.

(That said, being unreasonable isn’t all that unlikely for someone Padi’s age.)

I’m wondering if the Carresens Syndicate is going be part of the “alliance of equals” referred to in the title. When the family (and Pilot Janifer Carresens-DeNobli) was last mentioned, in Dragon in Exile, the delm summed them up by saying they were very like Korval. (I somehow doubt the Uncle is going to be part of it; has he ever recognised an equal?)

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 19

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Jeeves brings an urgent request to the delm.

That’s what you get, Miri, for tempting fate by being thankful you didn’t have to deal with Pat Rin’s problem in fleecy robe and slippers.

(It occurs to me that there’s a conceptual connection between Jeeves’s intention to create a child and what Val Con and Miri were doing when he interrupted, although Val Con and Miri presumably weren’t motivated by the same intention in this instance.)

The idea of Jeeves’s child coming to Korval is interesting; Jeeves, as far as I know, is not counted a member of the clan himself, any more than the other household servants. Perhaps it’s an option opened up by the fact that he came to the delm for permission. I don’t think a household servant would normally do that; inform their employer of a factor likely to affect their performance, yes, but the decision itself would be in the hands of their own delm. (I’m thinking, among other examples, of Jeeves’s predecessor Mr pak’Ora, who was called by his delm to serve his clan in another role, with his employer being given no say and left to cover his absence at short notice.) Jeeves, of course, doesn’t have a delm of his own, which may be another factor in Val Con’s offer. If it is an offer, and not an ultimatum: there have been cases where a child has gone to another clan as Balance for trouble caused by the parent. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, even though Jeeves admitted fault for the present emergency, but I suspect that the possibility is one of the reasons he had to stop and think before accepting the delm’s word.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 27

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Codrescu Station

In which more help arrives.

It’s not clear yet how many of the new arrivals are here following Bechimo‘s example. It might be that some of them were coming anyway, but didn’t have Bechimo‘s head start of already being outward bound when the call came; maybe they had business to settle before they could leave, or thought of useful things to round up and bring with them. (I’m thinking of Varthaven, for instance: do they always have doctors and a clinic on board, or was that something they had to arrange before they came?) Or it could be that every one of them is here because Asu was not only inspired but decided to share the inspiration around. Certainly the way they all arrive at once suggests some level of organization.

As of this chapter, Dragon Ship agrees with Ghost Ship (as one might expect) in declaring that it is currently summer on Surebleak.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 18

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Tradedesk

In which Laughing Cat confers with Carresens.

There are a lot of names in this chapter familiar from the Jethri books, although a large part of that is retroactive, since the Carresens family (and the Denobli family, who were a separate group back then) only appear in Trade Secret, which was written after this.

One name that isn’t retroactively familiar – though I didn’t recognise it myself the first time I read this novel, because I’m terrible with names when I’m not taking careful notes – is that of the thinker Arin, mentioned by Pilot Denobli, who was Jethri’s father Arin Gobelyn. And as such it’s probably not entirely a coincidence that the ship Theo flew for the Uncle bears his name, since the Uncle was Arin’s … let’s say “brother”, with the understanding that the Uncle’s family tree is kind of complicated.

(And the bit about Bechimo being well-suited to enact Arin’s ideas brings us back around to the idea of Bechimo having been created in Jethri’s time, only to founder once again on the fact that the numbers simply don’t add up.)

Pilot Denobli’s hair reminds me of two things. The hair itself brings to mind the elaborate spacer hairstyles mentioned in Trade Secret, which makes sense considering that Pilot Denobli is descended from the same spacer culture. The way he’s always fiddling with it makes me wonder about Theo’s first meeting with the Uncle, when he kept fiddling with his hair.

While we’re elaborating tenuous links between the Carresens and the Uncle, I’ve noticed something about their ship named OchoBalrog. The “Balrog” half has an obvious connection to the ship of that name owned by the Denobli family in Trade Secret, but we’ve seen the name Ocho once before in an entirely different context: it was the name of one of Dulsey’s siblings, way back in Crystal Soldier.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 16

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Tradedesk

In which Clarence is thoroughly investigated.

In a way, this is the delayed appearance of a scene one might have expected to ensue from Clarence being recognised on the station by an unnamed party. Because he’s among friends, though, it goes a lot better than it might have done.

Probably everything Clarence says is true, but there are some gaps in his testimony that a less sympathetic questioner would have picked him up on: for instance, what was the name of the company he and O’dell used to work for? Likewise, I notice Grafton asks him if the accusation of being a Juntavas agent is true now, and neglects to ask if it was true when it was made.

The bit about how Clarence made the mistake of trusting O’dell because they came from the same place strikes an echo: one of the lessons Instructor yos’Senchul made sure Theo learned was that you can’t trust anybody just because they belong to a particular group. It seems Clarence didn’t have such good teachers, and had to learn it the hard way.