In which Tolly offers Hazenthull a game of cards.
Looking back over my past posts, I apparently never got around to remarking on the fact that Nostrilia has almost the same name as Cordwainer Smith’s most famous planet in the universe (as seen in the novel Norstrilia, the short story “Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons”, and others). I’ve been waiting nearly two years for the story to reach Nostrilia so I can see if the two planets have anything in common beyond their names.
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Lufkit
Merc Hall
In which Edger and Sheather change course in response to fresh information.
I suppose technically Edger has come to the correct conclusion, but I’m dubious about his premises: surely the same bustle would be afoot without Val Con’s involvement. (Then again, perhaps it wouldn’t. The luck moves in strange ways around Korval.)
I’m struck by the term “blood war”, which more than one merc has now used to describe the Yxtrang invasion, but I don’t think any of the Yxtrang themselves have used. Perhaps it’s a merc term, used to distinguish a conflict with motives other than a nice big paycheque.
Lufkit
Epling Street
In which Sheather pays a visit to the home of an Elder.
Poor Sheather. He’s trying so hard to be inconspicuous and unthreatening, but he doesn’t quite grasp the inherent handicaps he’s carrying in those areas in the estimation of Terrans.
Lufkit
Lufkit Spaceport
In which the First Speaker makes a quick departure.
Nova is usually so self-possessed that it’s all the more striking on the rare occasions when she’s out of her depth. On Liad, where the cut-and-thrust of combat is more often metaphorical and verbal, she’s a cunning and doughty warrior; when it comes to this more literal form of battle, although she’s clearly prepared some for the possibility, she doesn’t have the same level of experience.
Lufkit
358 Epling Street
In which two Eldemas consult on a matter concerning their kin.
Reconstructing the chain of reasoning that might have brought Nova to Liz’s door has left me retrospectively a bit dubious about the Turtles’ thinking in the previous chapter. Nova presumably accessed Miri’s records the same way Sheather did, noticed that Liz was on the same planet where Edger met Miri and Val Con, and came to find out if they’d dropped in on Miri’s old friend and left any hints about their plans. That all makes sense. What doesn’t quite make sense, come to think of it, is the impression I got from the Turtles that they were planning to come and see Liz on the assumption that Miri and Val Con might have come to her after the Juntavas stranded them out in space; the idea that they might go for help to a friend living quietly on an out-of-the-way planet has merit in principle, but surely Lufkit doesn’t count as out-of-the-way when it’s the same planet they’d just run away from.
Shaltren
Juntavas Headquarters
In which Edger and Sheather decide to search elsewhere.
Edger and Sheather have apparently been sitting around on Shaltren for the last few months, waiting for any response to the Juntavas danger-tree broadcast. Maybe that doesn’t seem like such a long time to a Turtle, though it’s long enough that even they are getting a bit impatient. I bet it seemed much longer to the Juntavas.
14th Conquest Corps
Lytaxin
Liad: Department of Interior Command Headquarters
In which Nelirikk No-Troop sympathizes with a squirrel, and Lytaxin is defended by a ship orbiting Waymart.
I’m getting the idea that the Yxtrang are very concerned with saving face, to the point that they insist on appearing effective even at the expense of actual effectiveness: their response to making an error, here as at the end of Agent of Change, is to cover it up, even if that means nobody gets to learn from the situation and avoid future errors. When Nelirikk offers unsolicted advice — which, worse, turns out to be correct after the General ignores it — the General is more concerned about having his authority undermined than about finding out what other advice Nelirikk might be able to offer. And, as Nelirikk himself notes, the whole thing might have been avoided if the Yxtrang Command had chosen to learn from his previous encounter with a Liaden Scout, instead of shoving that under the carpet too.
(And then there’s the incidental business of Over-Technician Akrant, whose career is ruined because his carelessness ruined the General’s big entrance, even though the big entrance was, as far as I can see, entirely ceremonial and made no actual difference to the progress of the campaign.)
That’s an interesting detail about Yxtrang high command being situated at “Temp Headquarters”. I wonder if it’s genuinely temporary, or if by now it’s become settled and retains the name only by tradition.
It didn’t occur to me the first time it was mentioned, but here is the Department of the Interior sending Tyl Von sig’Alda out in a ship that frequently if not continually reports its status back to Headquarters by pin-beam — and, as we have been recently reminded, pin-beam is generally regarded as expensive and only for use in particularly important circumstances. So that says something about the Department’s priorities, even if the pin-beam beacon is just another of the special accoutrements attaching to sig’Alda’s special mission, like the deputy badge and the code phrase. (If all the Department’s ships are similarly equipped, that says something else again.)
Delgado
Leafydale Place
Standard Year 1393
In which Scout Reserve Captain Daav yos’Phelium returns a favour.
Speaking of first published appearances, this is Kamele’s, brief as it is, and it gave me entirely the wrong impression of her until Fledgling came out. I blame the translators’ decision to use “mistress” as a substitute for whatever word they use on Delgado, because while it has the advantage of bypassing a lengthy explanation it fails to capture the actual spirit of Kamele’s relationship with Jen Sar. On the other hand, I admit there were also some failings of comprehension on my part, regarding (a) the actual likelihood of Daav getting in the kind of relationship that “mistress” implies, and (b) the fact, which is mentioned right there in the story, that they’ve been together long enough for her daughter to be grown up.
This may also be, even more briefly, the first published mention of timonioum.
One of the purposes of this re-read was to see what new associations would come out of the stories by reading them in a different configuration: what would come out of a story by reading it near another story I maybe hadn’t read it near before? In this case, a new thing that struck me was the first dissonant detail: after a couple of pages of Jen Sar Kiladi getting ready for a fishing trip, just as he always does, he pauses to run through the Rainbow pattern. Reading the story so soon after Carpe Diem, with everything it has to say about the Rainbow and about the Rainbow being a Scout thing, that really jumped out at me as a sign that Professor Kiladi isn’t the groundhugging academic he appears. It says, if one didn’t already know, a great deal about his background in a very few words.
Another association that I don’t think I picked up before this re-read is that Acting Scout Commander sig’Radia has the same surname as Senior Scout Cho sig’Radia, the friend and mentor of Daav’s daughter. Probably a relative, not the same person; “Phoenix” has established that sig’Radia has a history of producing Scouts, and this story says straight up that Daav doesn’t know her. (I wonder, though: I don’t think Kiladi ever actually met Cho sig’Radia other than through written correspondence, and if he did notice the connection Daav wouldn’t make anything of it while he’s keeping the Kiladi connection quiet; conversely, of course, Cho sig’Radia knows Theo’s father only as Kiladi and has no reason to suspect he’s Daav. And one who was a Senior Scout a few years ago might have progressed far enough to become Acting Scout Commander now — especially since the “Acting” suggests that the Department’s recent actions have resulted in some rapid movement in the line of succession.)
I’m pretty sure I got the significance of the Richard A. Davis Portmaster Aid Foundation first time, though.
I seem to recall there being something I wanted to say about the bit where L’il Orbit casts shade on Kiladi’s piloting skills, but the only thing that’s coming to mind now is that it was never Kiladi, in the old days, who was called “schoolteacher”. And that there’s a bit of an irony in Daav yos’Phelium being named as a reliable pilot considering what happened the last time he was seen piloting a spaceship.
Vandar
Springbreeze Farm
In which Miri and Val Con are reunited.
Ah, you can tell Val Con’s recovered: they’re bantering again. I love the banter in this series.
And after all this time we get an answer to the question of who gets which coloured napkin, though no indication of whether it’s a definite or a contingent answer. Is the blue napkin always for Val Con, or only under some circumstances, or does anybody get whichever colour they want?
This is a fairly significant chapter for the series, in that it contains the first-published detailed description of the lifemate’s bond or wizard’s match. (Which I still think is a consequence rather than a cause of people getting together, even though Val Con here recalls hearing stories about intended lifemates finding each other through their bond. Stories may be made up or distorted, especially so in a context that encourages a romantic spin on the material.)
Liad
Envolima City
In which Tyl Von sig’Alda comes to a satisfactory conclusion.
There’s a notable omission from Tyl Von sig’Alda’s analysis of Val Con and Miri’s motives for joining forces: no mention of Miri’s trouble with the Juntavas which was, at least initially, the actual reason they stuck together.
One apparent possibility is that Agent sig’Alda doesn’t have knowledge of the Juntavas’ doings; they seem to be a Terran-only organisation, and they’re no doubt pretty short with strangers found sticking their nose into their business. But that doesn’t hold up; we’ve seen that the Department have ways of getting information they shouldn’t have access to, and in particular we’ve seen sig’Alda himself obtain information on this subject from a Juntava. It’s highly unlikely that Jefferson spent all that time talking about how they captured and stranded Miri and Val Con without ever mentioning why.
So the explanation seems to be that sig’Alda does have access to the information about the Juntavas’ interest in Miri, but has dismissed it as an insignificant Terran squabble irrelevant to the doings of Liadens.
(The other reason Val Con and Miri stuck together seems to be so far off sig’Alda’s radar as to not even occur to him as a possibility. Which is perhaps a bit shortsighted, given that there’s the example of Val Con’s uncle and aunt to show that it is possible that such a thing might befall one of Korval. But then, short-sightedness has ever been one of the characteristics of bigotry.)
I wonder how much of sig’Alda’s disdain for Terrans is original to him, and how much is a result of his Department training.