Tag Archives: Learning Shop

Ghost Ship – Chapter 6

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Surebleak Spaceport

In which cold Surebleak offers Delm Korval a warm welcome.

Jen Sar Kiladi has “been lost”, which might add to the awkwardness if Kamele ever takes it into her head to demand his safe return. One might say that it offers instead the opportunity to tell Kamele, with some degree of accuracy, that Kiladi has died, but I don’t think that would work for long and in any case I’m confident Daav knows as well as Theo does that he owes Kamele the whole truth. His reluctance to tell her so far has been about trying to spare her the further trouble of being dragged into Korval’s orbit at a dangerous time, not about shirking his duty.

It does raise the question of why Kiladi has slipped away. Perhaps he felt, or whatever part of Daav keeps him working, that he’d served his purpose: Daav has said more than once that he’s completed the Balance in which Kiladi was such a useful tool, and he’s also fulfilled his original purpose in the sense that he was only supposed to stick around until he was discovered, which he now has been. And letting go of Kiladi presumably means there’s more room in Daav’s head for Aelliana. But I find myself remembering that Aelliana’s most striking recent increase in ability was associated with Daav eating one of the Tree’s seed pods, and wondering: Did Kiladi-Daav make the decision that Kiladi’s time was done, or was the decision made for him?

That’s an intriguing background detail, the hint at friction between the Pilots’ Guild and the Federated Trade Commission. I don’t think we’ve heard of the Federated Trade Commission before, at least by that name; perhaps it’s descended from the trade commission that was around in Jethri’s time. I’m tempted to speculate, on the basis of no evidence whatever, that it’s a Terran organisation that takes issue with the Pilots’ Guild because, as we know, the latter is a case of harmonious collaboration between Terrans and Liadens. But then again, we know from various bits with Shan that he was certified as a Master Trader by a Trade Commission that is likewise a collaboration. (I’m sufficiently attached to my hypothesis to wonder if there’s more than one Trade Commission. Perhaps the Federated Trade Commission is a smaller federation of traders who don’t want to be involved in anything that requires collaboration with Liadens. But now I’m really speculating.)

I Dare – Chapter 40

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Day 31
Standard Year 1393

Surebleak Spaceport

In which good intentions sooner or later need cash to back them.

A whole month has passed since we last saw Pat Rin and company, so it’s now only a few weeks before Val Con and Miri are going to start worrying about them. The way things are, though, there’s still a lot might happen in a few weeks.

If anyone ever compiles a book of advice for people caught up in adventure stories, one of those pieces of advice will surely be to never, ever, under any provocation, ask the question “What harm can it do?”

Plan B – Chapter 2

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Standard Year 1393
Vandar Orbit and Jump

In which Miri is not keen on sleep-learning.

The timing gets tricky again here: Val Con says that he and Miri have been together on Vandar for eight months, but there’s a solid date near the beginning of Carpe Diem and there’s a solid date near the beginning of I Dare and the gap between them is closer to four months.

Four Standard months, that is: Val Con doesn’t say what kind of months he’s thinking of, and since they’ve only just left Vandar, maybe he’s thinking of Vandar’s months — and if that’s so, and a Vandar month is about half the length of a Standard month, it all fits together.

If this is the case, it would also neatly solve the puzzle in Carpe Diem where Val Con said it had been slightly over a month since they left Lufkit and Miri said it was less than a month and the best estimate I could come up with said it was about 20 days. If Val Con was already thinking in local months (which would make sense for a Scout who’s trained to pick up local customs) and Miri was thinking in Standard months (which would make sense for an untrained person who was struggling to pick up the local language), that fits together too.

It’s a good thing I enjoy figuring out how much smarter than me the authors are, considering how often it happens.

Something else I’ve been wrong about, that I need to make a note of because it’s come up in the comments before: I’d always thought before this re-read that autodocs and sleep-learning units were the same thing, but every time I re-read a bit that I thought supported that impression I turn out to have misunderstood it. This chapter is where the confusion started for me; it’s the first time in publication order we see someone go into a sleep-learning machine, and I thought it was the same device as the autodoc Miri was in a few chapters ago, partly because Miri lies down in both and partly because Val Con gets her tested by the autodoc to see if she’s ready to try sleep-learning. On this re-read, I’m picking up the differences, like the autodoc having an entrance hatch on the side that cycles open and closed and the sleep-learner having a lid on the top that raises and lowers.