Liad
Trealla Fantrol

In which the First Speaker of Korval departs Liad in a hurry.

This is a new wrinkle in Nova’s talent: before, when a Memory came upon her, she was stuck in a fixed re-enactment of a past event, but this Memory is aware of and responsive to the circumstances in which it is being Remembered. That makes sense, though, since this is a circumstance in which a fixed re-enactment wouldn’t be very helpful.

The phrase “the children would be off-planet already” is a useful one. Not only does it save the authors the time and space necessary to list the children individually, it leaves them room to later remember an extra child or two whom they might not have thought to mention (such as, for instance, Pat Rin’s heir, who presumably exists but has not yet been introduced).