Day 178
Standard Year 1118
Irikwae
In which a friend in need is a friend indeed.
It is saddening, although perhaps not entirely a surprise, to find that even a Healer may turn out to be the kind of doctor who thinks he knows his patient’s feelings better than the patient does. I suppose being able to see inside someone’s head is no help to a person who is confident he knows the answer before he even looks.
Day 168
Standard Year 1118
Irikwae Port
In which there are several beginnings for Jethri and his family.
This is another chapter where I’d probably have a lot to say if I were reading it for the first time, but this time round it’s more the minor details catching my attention.
One really trivial detail is that when Jethri’s thinking about all the people at the Tarnia clanhouse he misses already, one of those listed is a “Mrs tel’Bonti” who is not mentioned anywhere else in the book. Presumably the person being referred to is the cook, Mrs tor’Beli, who does not otherwise appear in the list.
Seeli’s news settles it: there’s definitely something going on between her and Grig. I wonder for how long? “A couple of Standard Months” is since they began their stay on Kinaveral, but of course there’s nothing to say they haven’t been carrying on longer than that.
It’s an interesting touch that the Spacers would prefer their baby to be born in space. Seems to me that would mean they’re a long way from help if anything goes wrong, but then again a Spacer’s life consists almost entirely, one way or another, of being a long way from help if anything goes wrong.
Day 135
Standard Year 1118
Elthoria
In which Jethri discovers a foster-granmam.
The narrative seems determined to show me a liar in the matter of Jethri’s lucky fractin. If I were the paranoid type, I might wonder if the amount of time it was absent was carefully calculated so that it would reappear just as one was sure it was gone for good.
Vil Tor and Gaenor don’t entirely succeed in unlocking the approaching situation for Jethri; he still has an unpleasant surprise waiting. This is not their fault; being, as Jethri notes, Grounders, they’re not aware of all the Spacer assumptions Jethri is bringing to bear on his understanding of what he’s been told.
It seems to be significant that both Vil Tor and Gaenor touch Jethri on the shoulder as they say their farewells, since the narrator makes a point of mentioning it, and I’m aware that Liadens generally don’t go in for casual physical contact. I’m not sure what it’s significant of, though, unless just how close their friendship has become.
Incidentally, I’m intrigued by Vil Tor, whose family name is never mentioned; even in the cast list he is only “Vil Tor” and nothing else.
Day 125
Standard Year 1118
Modrid
In which Jethri and the master of Modrid Trade Hall make their opinions of each other very clear.
Jethri shows a couple of times in this chapter that he doesn’t expect the regard of others. As Master ven’Deelin notes, when the Hall Master refuses to accept him as Master ven’Deelin’s apprentice he’s more upset about the insult to her than the corresponding slighting of himself. And then he admits that it hadn’t occurred to him that his uncle might have genuinely considered that he had properly earned the right to hold the ten-year Combine key. Perhaps it comes of being the baby of a large family, with or without the addition of a parent who wants nothing to do with him. It’s something he’s going to have to work on; humility is well and good, but a trader is not going to get very far without a sense of his own consequence.
The historic tapestry of surpassing ugliness is an amusing detail.
Day 123
Standard Year 1118
Elthoria
Modrid Approach
In which Master ven’Deelin’s apprentice trades solo for the first time.
Did I say Jethri’s habit of nervously playing with his lucky fractin had disappeared? Not entirely, it turns out.
The partly-overheard conversation at the end of the chapter would sound quite portentous if I didn’t remember what it’s about.
Day 116
Standard Year 1118
Elthoria
In which Jethri opens his crate from home.
The dent in the B-crate has all kinds of interesting potential stories behind it, depending on just when it happened. If it happened on the way from Khat to Jethri, that’s one thing. If Khat just added her own few items to the crate Iza was already storing Jethri’s stuff in, and Iza put the dent in it herself at some point since Arin’s death, that’s another thing. If Iza was making use of one of Arin’s old crates, and it was already dented when he got it, that’s another thing again (and at this point a small voice in my head is muttering, speculatively, “Wildetoad Wildetoad Wildetoad…”). But no, it says some of the fastenings jammed when the crate was deformed, so it most likely happened since Khat packed it up.
There’s a paragraph in this chapter that speaks to some of the conversation that’s been going on in the comment threads: “Say what you would about Iza Gobelyn’s temper, and no question she was cold. Say it all – and when it was said, the fact remained that she was a canny and resourceful captain, who held the best good of the ship in her heart.” Gotta admit, though, we haven’t actually seen much of that side of her so far.
Jethri interprets the monogram on the signet ring box as “Arin Jethri Gobelyn”. If he’s correct to do so, does that mean that Arin was already a Gobelyn when he was still a commissioner, before he married Iza?
Another little puzzle: at the bottom of the fractin collection, a rack made of an unfamiliar metal; with Crystal Dragon fresh in memory, I wonder if it’s a data-case to go with the data-tiles. (Or perhaps just an attempt at re-creating a data-case, the way Nelirikk’s shibjela is not a real shib.)
All the focus on the fractin collection leads me to realise that Jethri’s lucky fractin hasn’t been making many appearances lately, and his old habit of playing with it when he was nervous has completely disappeared since he started protocol lessons.
Day 107
Standard Year 1118
Elthoria and Tilene
In which Jethri’s new status occasions some changes of schedule.
Norn ven’Deelin says, in word and in deed, that she trusts Jethri to behave honorably and do well, and not to make her regret claiming him as kin. I wonder how she’d have handled the situation if she didn’t trust him so well. (She wouldn’t have let the chel’Gaibins take him while he was under her protection, and perhaps she might have claimed him as kin anyway, seeing no other option – because I don’t think she’d have done that, even trusting Jethri as she does, if she’d seen another option – but perhaps she’d have arranged his schedule differently, kept him more out of the public eye, and let it be more in name than in fact.) On the other hand, perhaps this is a pointless question: if she didn’t already think well of him, he wouldn’t have been trading under her on Tilene and the situation would never have arisen.
The Master Trader’s concern over the unnamed practice lately surfaced on Tilene is ominous, especially once one starts wondering if it’s of a piece with the “climate changes” observed by her friend the Scout Captain on Kailipso.
Tan Sim’s family are seriously unpleasant people. Not that we hadn’t already been getting that impression, of course.