Tag Archives: Keravath

Trade Secret – Chapter 15

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Aboard Keravath in Jump to Vincza

In which Jethri and the Scout – and others – arrive at Vincza.

Captain ter’Astin continues to give Jethri practical lessons in piloting, to the point that Jethri is able to sit Pilot in Charge when Keravath docks at Tradedesk Station, and do a creditable job despite an unwarranted distraction.

(And I wonder if he had the spare attention to note the name of the distraction, or if the distraction had the situational awareness to notice who it was they were distracting.)

Speaking of distractions: during the drill, the Scout attempts to distract Jethri by trying to draw him into a conversation about local relationship and marriage rules, and Jethri says to hold it and tell him later. I wonder if this is foreshadowing that local relationship and marriage rules are going to be something Jethri needs to know about; if so, I hope the Scout did indeed get around to raising the subject again later.

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.

Trade Secret – Chapter 7

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Control Deck, Keravath, Outbound from Boltston

In which the junior trader and the senior pilot both have things to learn.

I find Iza’s treatment of Jethri, as revealed in this chapter, quite upsetting. Neglect is one thing – I can kind of see (which is not to say I approve) how an intention to be rid of him might translate into a desire not to invest more than necessary of ship’s resources into his development, when he’d be gone before there was any chance of a return on the investment. But to deliberately hamper his development, to not only deny him the opportunity to develop a potential (and ter’Astin’s right, the tale of his fathers says he’s got the genes for it, at the very least), but to go about actively persuading him that he doesn’t even possess the potential – I just… ugh.

The more we learn about Iza, the less I like her.

The Scout says that he knows of Jethri’s father and Jethri’s uncle, “and more now than when first you and I met”, which apparently extends to knowing something of Jethri’s father’s father as well. That being so, I wonder whether ter’Astin, when he speaks of Jethri’s uncle, means Uncle Paitor, who is the only person Jethri knows to call uncle… or if it’s Arin’s Uncle he has in mind?

Trade Secret – Chapter 6

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Clan Ixin’s Tradeship Elthoria, Boltston Arrival

In which Jethri’s life once again takes a major turn.

It appears that Scout Captain ter’Astin did not after all manage to return Jethri’s logbook to him before he left Irikwae (come to think of it, there was something to that effect in chapter two, though I didn’t pay it much mind at the time) and now it has been appropriated by “an internal agency allied with the Scouts”.

And doesn’t that sound familiar, to someone who’s read the whole series?

Jethri challenges the Scout: Are you going to let them get away with that? And the Scout responds: No, we are not going to let them get away with that.

And so, it seems, it is after all Jethri who is to leave the ship in pursuit of Balance. Looking back, I think it’s not that Master ven’Deelin wasn’t aware of that possibility, only that the other loomed larger in the narrative because it required more time and effort to prepare against. (And, at that, who can say that the events of the last few chapters haven’t been part of preparing against the possibility of Jethri having to leave the ship?)

A small prediction: I reckon this chapter includes another instance of the authors’ trick of reminding the audience of something that will become important in a chapter or two; in this case, I suspect we are at last approaching a pay-off for “There are secrets in all families”.