Tarona Rusk
Auxiliary Services
In which Section Head Tarona Rusk catches up on the news of her department.
More details about the consequences of the Healing of Tarona Rusk, and more things whose absence was felt in Accepting the Lance. It’s going to be interesting, at some point in the future, to re-read this stretch of the series with Trader’s Leap included in chronological order, and see how much that changes how I feel about Accepting the Lance.
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Shipyear 65
Tripday 287
Third Shift
16.00 hours
In which Shan and Priscilla consider the future.
I haven’t enjoyed re-reading Conflict of Honors quite so very much as I did some of the earlier novels in the re-read, but I think a large part of that may be that I’ve re-read it so many times already; the pleasure it gives me now comes from familiarity rather than the joy of discovery, which can be a bit of a problem when I’m using discovery to power the blog entries. There’s also the way it’s divided into so many little chapters, which can get a bit wearing at one chapter per day.
Tomorrow is the novella “Changeling”, and then we return to a distant, hitherto briefly-glimpsed part of the universe for the novel Fledgling.
Shipyear 65
Tripday 182
Second Shift
8.30 hours
In which Priscilla is welcomed home.
There’s a moment in “Moonphase” where Priscilla stands in front of the Temple and speaks her name, and the reaction she gets (or doesn’t get) drives home to her the fact that she is no longer Priscilla Mendoza, Maiden of the Circle. The moment in this chapter where she stands in front of the mirror and speaks her name, and adjusts her self-image to accept the person she is now instead of defining herself by the person she was, feels like a bookend, or the far end of a period of transition.
I wonder where Lina did get the clothes she gives Priscilla. If they’re handmade to specification, it’s unlikely that they were ordered and made in the time Priscilla’s been asleep. It was mentioned earlier that she was head of her Line, so she’d have clothes of that kind for her own use, but would they fit Priscilla?
Shipyear 65
Tripday 181
Third Shift
16.00 hours
In which, having seen Priscilla comfortable at Shan’s request, Lina also does the inverse.
Another very short chapter, which I might have done better to have bundled with the previous one.
There’s probably something to be said about how Shan’s understanding of Priscilla’s casting-out is filtered through his own cultural knowledge and assumptions, but it’s not coming to me at the moment.
Shipyear 65
Tripday 181
Third Shift
14.00 hours
In which Shan receives the news from Sintia.
Have I mentioned that I have a lot of respect for Mr dea’Gauss?
It’s not mentioned here, but we know from “A Matter of Dreams” that the incident that led to Priscilla’s expulsion involved not only the saving of three lives but also the ending of one, under similar circumstances of defense-under-pressure as the death of Dagmar Collier. It’s possible that, when Priscilla gave herself up as a murderer Shan would no longer wish to be associated with, she had the earlier death on her mind as well as the recent one. A person might be able to persuade herself that one slaying was an aberration that might be discounted as long as it didn’t become a habit, but then to find herself doing it again…
There may not be a more appropriate time after this to make an observation about Priscilla’s name. In full it is Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza, following the form of a Spanish naming custom in which a person’s surname is in two parts, one inherited from each parent, and connected with “y” (which means “and”). In the Spanish tradition, the important part of the surname would be the first half, inherited from the father, and the short form of Priscilla’s name would be “Priscilla Delacroix” — but in fact, as we’ve seen more than once in this novel, the short form of her name is “Priscilla Mendoza”, giving precedence to her mother’s surname, which fits with the matriarchal nature of the society she hails from.
Shipyear 65
Tripday 171
Fourth Shift
16.00 hours
In which Gordy seeks a dragon to accompany his tree.
I think this chapter heading also has an error in it. Several other chapter headings have said 16.00 hours, and they’ve all said Third Shift.
Shan’s approach to teaching piloting reminds me somewhat of his uncle’s in Scout’s Progress (or vice versa, when I’m reading in publication order).
Shipyear 65
Tripday 171
Third Shift
14.00 hours
In which Shan receives news of a friend’s death.
I like the little details that enrich this chapter: Ken Rik is in a bad mood. BillyJo thinks Shan isn’t eating enough. The description of what else was in Shan’s mail before he hit the pinbeam from Sintia, because even though the other message isn’t significant to the plot, it is significant to Shan.
I have read the various parts of Priscilla’s story so many times by now that I don’t recall what I thought the first time I read the pinbeam from Sintia. I am pretty sure, though, that I could have been added to Shan’s litany of people who wouldn’t believe it meant Priscilla was a desperate criminal.
Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Second Shift
6.00 hours
In which Priscilla has some new concepts to grapple with.
Priscilla believes Moonhawk is dead. Well, after all, she hasn’t heard from Moonhawk since she left the Temple, and there was that public and official announcement of Moonhawk’s death — and, even after what she’d been through, the long habit of assuming that a public and official announcement from the Temple would contain dependable information must have held weight. But reading in chronological order, and getting to “Moonphase” before this, casts the situation in a different light: No one dares mention to the Inner Circle that Moonhawk still lives… There is also a moment in “Moonphase” where Moonhawk tells Priscilla that she has power of her own, not borrowed from Moonhawk, but Priscilla had quite a bit on her mind at the time and it appears now that bit of information didn’t sink in.
This chapter heading, I am pretty sure, has a typo in it. Tripday 155 was long and incident-packed, but I don’t believe it has a second Second Shift after it had already progressed to Fourth Shift. (I have the Meisha Merlin edition; I wonder if it’s been fixed in the Baen edition.)
Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Fourth Shift
20.00 hours
In which Priscilla learns a thing or two about Shan.
The detail about Priscilla’s shirt caught my eye on this reading: one of those little things that might escape one’s notice if one hadn’t got the background detail about the way she used to dress back on Sintia.
It appears that there are, after all, creatures other than the norbears in the pet library; though I confess I haven’t the slightest idea what a sylfok might be.
Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Third Shift
14.00 hours
In which Priscilla accepts a promotion.
Priscilla’s grasp of Liaden communication is improving. Not only does she have a repertoire of useful hand gestures for sentiments like Think nothing of it, this time she is able to separate her friend Shan from her boss Captain yos’Galan.
This is the first time Priscilla has thought of Moonhawk, at least where we could hear her, since she witnessed Moonhawk being declared dead, way back in the first chapter.
Is this the only time in the series Priscilla mentions a sibling?