Tag Archives: Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 25

The Happy Occasion
Langlastport

In which some things are coming to a close, and some things are just beginning.

Tolly’s arrow completely fails to find its mark. It’ll be interesting to see the conversation where Haz explains to him where his judgment failed him. Part of it, no doubt, is that she’s at least as determined not to let him get killed or worse as he is to protect her. And it occurs to me that Tolly’s never really seen Hazenthull when she’s on mission; even when she was on duty as a Port Security officer, that was a dialled-down version of her. Full-throttle Hazenthull is the Hazenthull who ignored orders, misappropriated supplies and personnel, crossed hostile territory and behaved in an unprecedented fashion in the face of the enemy in an attempt to save the life of her senior partner — which, come to think of it, is not so unlike what she’s attempting now, so her motivation would also include a measure of this time I will not fail.

Meanwhile, it’s going to be a rough journey for Tolly, because he’s convinced that he’s on his own, and that he’s dealt an injury to his best friend to keep her from following. That’s something that’s going to weigh on him, even with his attention bent on talking the Admiral around.

I had wondered why Inki had mentioned her shared background with Tolly to Haz; it seemed like an obvious slip at the time. But the explanation that it was a hint meant to be recognised only in hindsight makes sense. Likewise the mention of the directors in her final message; though it’s not quoted here, that was accompanied by a reminder of the shared background.

Padi’s uncertainty about Ms Hartensis’ reaction is presumably a consequence of the block Shan placed last chapter. I did wonder, a block on what? but it makes sense that it would be a block on her ability to pick up the emotions of the people around her, which would otherwise be a distraction and a source of stress and which she hasn’t yet learned to block out herself.

(A minor continuity thing: Last chapter, the assistant caterer was wearing a long red apron over white clothes. This chapter, the long apron is white. Perhaps on Langlast there’s a custom of wearing different aprons for tidying up than for serving?)

And just when it seemed everything was smoothing out with Padi and that things might be resolved without too much further trouble, we get that very worrying final scene…

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 24

The Happy Occasion
Langlastport

In which assistance is offered.

The Department of Answering My Questions As Soon As They’re Asked scores again.

If Tolly’s attempt to deflect Haz works as intended, I suppose she’ll go after Inki and Tocohl instead. But somehow I don’t expect it will.

It occurs to me that weird headaches were one of the items listed near the beginning of the novel as indicators of incipient Healer abilities.

Shan’s encounter with the montora juice is a nice light note amid all the foreboding.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 23

Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Tarigan
Berth 12

In which Tolly has an ally at large.

All things considered, Inki has given Tolly more chance than I was expecting of her. Though I notice she’s managed to arrange things so that whichever of her comrades Haz decides to go in aid of, that will leave one of Inki’s projects clear to proceed uninterrupted.

I was trying to decide whether Haz would be the type to call home with a status report before haring off after — I’m guessing probably Tolly, if she can figure out where he’s being sent — and then I was trying to figure out whether she has a method available for calling home; probably Tocohl’s been handling the status reports, and since she was probably communicating directly with Jeeves she might have been using a channel not accessible to Haz.

Where Tolly is being sent is Nostrilia, which is almost but not quite the name of the most famous planet in the galaxy in Cordwainer Smith’s science fiction stories. It will be interesting to see how far the resemblance extends.

There’s a moment, when Tolly is talking to Haz about people “believing that something that’s manufactured is artificial”, where I get the impression that he’s speaking of himself as much as he is of Tocohl or the Admiral.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 22

The Happy Occasion
Langlastport

In which there are awakenings.

…or Inki could persuade Admiral Bunter to abduct Tolly (in retrospect, I should have been more suspicious about how it was a private conversation with Inki that made him change his tune) and then take off in Ahab-Esais — I’m guessing possibly with Tocohl — leaving Haz to figure out which one to follow.

Assuming she hasn’t done something more permanent to Haz than she did to Tolly.

Shan sees no reason to assume Padi’s going to have a breakout during the reception, but with the advantage of knowing this is a story I’m inclined to differ: it would be a bit of an anticlimax if all that happens next is that Shan and Padi have a friendly conversation in their hotel room. (Or would it? Considering how much Padi has bottled up, she’s in a fair way to cause a lot of fireworks if the friendly conversation cracks her open.)

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 21

Admiral Bunter
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop

In which there are preparations for arrivals and preparations for departures.

Padi is set for her trade reception, and even gets a bit of flying practice in. (Pilot Embrathiri — who incidentally is another character who’s short on gender-specific pronouns — may well have expressed a desire to sit passenger, but I’m inclined to suspect that the expression may have been preceded by a bit of prompting from Padi’s father.) Over at Jemiatha, everything’s set for Admiral Bunter, Tarigan, and Ahab-Esais to go their various ways. All seems to be proceeding smoothly.

This is probably why I’m expecting something to go horribly wrong within the next chapter or two.

(Is it wrong that I’m kind of hoping something will go horribly wrong in a way that means Haz gets to keep hanging out with Tolly? Like, say, Inki steals Tocohl and Tarigan, and Tolly, Haz, and the Admiral have to go in pursuit. Something like that, maybe.)

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 20

Admiral Bunter
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop

In which Admiral Bunter returns.

I like the byplay about Padi using glancing-at-the-notepad as a way of providing appropriate pauses in the conversation, and the way it offers an explanation for her father’s ubiquitous glass of wine. (The glass of wine has a potential strategic advantage over glancing-at-the-notepad, in that the latter might make it look like one doesn’t really know what one is doing.)

It’s also another example of how two plot lines parallel each other within a chapter, because over in the other plot line we have Tolly thinking about how Admiral Bunter needs to learn about providing appropriate pauses in his conversation.

Thematic parallels aside, I still have no idea how, or if, the three plot strands are going to meet up. What has the progress of Dutiful Passage to do with Admiral Bunter, or either to do with the Uncle and Daav and Aelliana? Maybe Padi will accidentally stumble upon the ancient AI that the Uncle and Tocohl are each so interested in finding?

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 19

Vivulonj Prosperu

In which Aelliana returns.

Okay, so I wouldn’t have been left in the dark much longer about Tolly sharing a background with Inki. (This is far from the first time it’s happened that I’ve wondered about a thing in a blog entry and it’s been answered in the next chapter. That’s a good thing, I figure; it means the stories are well-paced and handing out information at an appropriate rate.)

Given the fact of their shared background, I think that that’s why Inki doesn’t want Haz telling Tolly about the confrontation with Stew. (I suspect the specific detail she doesn’t want Haz sharing is less the bit where she had to convince him with money, but the bit just before that where she frightened a man who wasn’t frightened by an Yxtrang. Or maybe it is the money thing, but because if she’s the legal owner of the ship the Admiral is installed in, that might give her leverage if she decides to run off with him.) She apparently hasn’t told Tolly she’s a Lyre graduate, which is an understandable precaution since he probably wouldn’t trust her if he knew — and so doesn’t help us tell whether she should be trusted, since she’d want to avoid that either way. She’s told Haz that they’re graduates of the same institute, but in a vague way that Haz will probably take to mean that they learned mentoring in the same place. And Tocohl knows Inki is a student of the Lyre Institute, but doesn’t know that Tolly is.

Meanwhile, over in the Daav-and-Aelliana plot line, we have a recap of the Tanjalyre Institute, for the benefit of readers who had forgotten or never knew about it. Among other things. (“could not help but overhear”, forsooth.) For the record, I’m very much enjoying the Daav-and-Aelliana side of the story, but I have less to say about it because its direction is less of a surprise.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 18

Tarigan
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Berth 12

In which the road to occupying a new body is not without bumps.

And now I’m wondering how much of this foreboding I’d be having if I hadn’t read “Wise Child” first, because there’s quite a bit there about Tolly’s background that hasn’t explicitly come up in this novel yet. I’m pretty sure I’d have made the connection between Inki’s powers of persuasion and her background with the Lyre Institute being similar to the aelantaza and the Tanjalyre Institute, but I’m not sure I’d have spotted that Tolly’s also a graduate, even with all the hints that the novel’s been dropping about how he’s designed to inspire trust and make friends easily. And if I hadn’t realised that Inki and Tolly share a background, I wouldn’t now be worried about Inki stabbing everyone in the back and dragging him back “home”.

(Though I would probably still be worried about her stabbing everyone in the back and abducting the Admiral as soon as he’s stable enough to move.)

Come to think of it, something similar happened with Dragon in Exile, where I was waiting all through the novel for something because it had been mentioned in the short story that was written later but published first. I didn’t with Trade Secret, but I did end up thinking the short story would have made more sense if I’d read it after the novel. So maybe I should make a rule about not reading the new short stories before the new novels? But the short story comes out a whole month before the novel, and it’s difficult to just leaving lying there, and you figure they wouldn’t let the short story be published first if reading it first was wrong

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 17

Tarigan
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Berth 12

In which it is time for a rest.

Well, darn. I was beginning to really like Inki. But of course she would be really likeable, if a graduate of the Lyre Institute is anything like a graduate of the Tanjalyre Institute — not to mention, as she said herself, possessed of considerable persuasive abilities. However, I think it’s too much to hope that the Institute could have produced two experienced mentors who both went rogue, and if an AI-stunning weapon is introduced in the second act it’s probably going to go off in the third.

Or is it? Would Inki let Tocohl know she had an AI-stunning weapon if her plans included using it on Tocohl? And we have been told that it was because Tolly was a mentor that he was able to work himself free of the Institute’s control, so if anyone was going to repeat the feat perhaps it would be another mentor. But I’m definitely not going to trust her now. And I wish I knew whether Tocohl knows what it means to be a graduate of the Lyre Institute.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 16

Tarigan
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Berth 12

In which Tolly has his first in-person meeting with the Admiral.

Work continues on Admiral Bunter. It appears that the transfer does have to be done all in one go, which makes sense, and that Tocohl and Jeeves did plan ahead and pack a selection of things for him to be transferred into, which I suppose I should have expected.

The idea that Bechimo might have chosen to leave Admiral Bunter behind in the active expectation that he would fall apart by himself before too long is not a pleasant one, but it seems enough like something Bechimo might have done before Theo and Clarence started teaching him some consideration that I’m not sure he didn’t do it. (Theo, on the other hand, I don’t think would have done it deliberately. I expect she just didn’t think.)

I’m intrigued by the mention of Inki having mentored a judge. Who uses a machine — especially an illegal machine — as a judge?

I wonder if the theme of people being put in new bodies can be extended to the other main plot strand, back on Dutiful Passage. I can’t see an obvious way to apply it to Padi, but there is Shan — rather than being put into a new body he’s not certain how much to trust, he isn’t certain how much to trust what Lute might be putting into the body he already has.