Council Meeting Room
Mercantile Building
In which a meeting proceeds without the invited guest.
A small detail I noticed: one of the other services contained within the Mercantile Building is a bank. Remember when ‘bleakers’ response to Conrad mentioning a bank was “What’s one of them?” and “I can’t see that working here”?
Another reminder of how things have improved since Conrad arrived.
Boss Conrad’s House
Blair Road
In which Penn Kalhoon has something to say.
I was wrong about the meeting Pat Rin sent Quin to, which I might have known if I’d thought; on further consideration, if it had been something other than an ordinary sort of meeting Pat Rin would have said so. This is not the first time I’ve been wrong in this novel about an upcoming meeting going to be the occasion for excitement; my persistent mistake has been to misunderstand what kind of story this is. I kept assuming that if a meeting got mentioned it was probably going to be important to the plot, and that if trouble was brewing it would come to a head quickly, but this is a more slow-burn story than that, and meetings of the Council of Bosses are important to the plot even if nothing dramatic happens at them simply because it matters to the characters that there is a Council of Bosses and that it’s holding regular meetings.
And that brings us around to what Pat Rin tells Penn, which is another thread of the ongoing thing about how the new ways are going to survive: if Pat Rin and Val Con and Miri get killed, that isn’t the end of the new Surebleak. Korval might have shown the way, but they couldn’t have made it happen without Surebleakeans, and now the way has been shown the Surebleakeans can make it happen without Korval if they have to.
I suspect it speaks to how much Surebleak has improved already that Pat Rin is able to compare its port to Solcintra’s Mid Port instead of its Low Port. For that matter, the state Surebleak Port was in when Pat Rin arrived was so run-down and uninhabited it might not even have stood a comparison to the Low Port, which whatever it may not be at least has an active population.
It hadn’t occurred to me how useful a scholar of the history of education might be in a city trying to develop a proper education system. I wonder how long the authors have been planning that one.
Corner of Dudley Lane and Farley Avenue
In which Kareen and Kamele have made a discovery.
I do not think it’s just a coincidence that Kareen’s preferred seat faces the doorway, though I can see why Kamele would think so. They’re both scholars, but one of them grew up on a Safe World, and the other grew up in a family that habitually gets into situations where it’s valuable to have habits like always sitting where you can see the door.
I said earlier that getting involved in Kareen’s project gives Kamele a reason to stay on Surebleak that is her own and not just a case of having a relationship with someone who lives here. Droi, uncertain of her continued welcome among the Bedel, may find that it does the same for her.
Which, come to think of it, may be a good thing, because staying to be with Rys might not end up as an option if he’s going off to fight the Department. It would be one thing if the choice came upon her when Rys was right there and she could say, “I am staying here with Rys”, but it might happen that she has decide whether she wants to say, “I am staying here, where Rys isn’t and may never be again”.
Surebleak Port
In which Tolly lifts out, and Rys has news.
I’d never really thought about the issues involved in fitting an Yxtrang into an autodoc designed for a smaller person. This is probably a worst case, being a shipboard autodoc, which means it would take up as little room as possible, and on a Liaden ship whose designer presumably envisaged it only being needed by Liadens.
Tolly’s apology to the pilot for getting Korval tangled in their business by bringing Hazenthull onto the ship suggests that he doesn’t know that pilot, ship, and business all belong to Korval already. And I don’t understand why not. I can see that Tolly comes from the kind of background where you don’t speculate about your employer’s identity if they choose not to tell you, but why not tell him?
I suspect, given the way Korval’s Luck tends to run, that Rys and Val Con’s visit to Yulie is going to intersect in some interesting way with the Syndicate’s plan to take over the farm.
The incident at Bob’s Grocery reinforces the point that Bosil was reflecting on during the first incident at Quill’s Bakery: if the new way of doing things survives on Surebleak, it’s not going to be just because the Bosses insist, it’s going to be because the ordinary people see the advantages and are willing to fight to keep them.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which everybody’s going to town.
The island Shan is interested in is presumably an outcome of his search for a site for the new yos’Galan house, so this chapter has references to both him and Kareen looking for new housing situations. There’s room for them at Jelaza Kazone, and they’d be safe there, but “safe and well provided for” has never been the overriding priority of the children of Korval.
I have sympathy for Kamele’s temptation to call it quits rather than face further uncertainty with no assurance that it won’t turn out to be quits anyway. I’ve had situations where I’ve felt similarly, though obviously none quite like this.
I still have a bad feeling about this upcoming meeting of the Bosses. Hearing that the delm will be there as well as Boss Conrad – in fact, with Kareen and Kamele’s excursion pretty much the entire household is going to be in town today – this is not making me any less concerned about the possibility that there will be Drama.
Day 345
Standard Year 1392
Hamilton Street
Surebleak
In which Boss Conrad goes visiting his peers.
There’s been a bit of a failure of incluing, here: Pat Rin’s been on Surebleak for over a hundred pages at this point, and this is the first mention of him going by the name of Conrad. It becomes apparent on reflection that in the circumstances he would not have been going around introducing himself to people as Pat Rin yos’Phelium, but the first time I read the novel, before I’d taken the time for reflection, the impression I came away with was that he’d for some reason taken the name after Jonni was killed, as part of his plan to sort out the Bosses. (Part of it was that just after people start talking about Boss Conrad, we get the first version of the rumour that he was Jonni’s father, which got me to trying to figure out if it had been mentioned somewhere that Jonni’s full name was Jonni Conrad and I’d just missed it.)
In that respect, reading in chronological order helps, because before we got this far we’d already had “Persistence”, which does remember to mention that Pat Rin had already adopted the name of Conrad for the purposes of setting up his carpet emporium.
Reading in chronological order and including the short stories adds extra layers to a couple other things in this chapter, too.
Penn Kalhoun is mentioned in “Fighting Chance” as one of the people Miri knew when she still lived on Surebleak. That was around thirteen years ago, and he wasn’t a boss yet, then. (He’s been a boss for ten years, we’re told, so he must be doing something right: recall that Boss Moran was considered relatively well-established, and he’d been a boss for less than three years.)
The other thing is the method by which Boss Deacon was dealt with, which sounds to me like a certain incident in “Veil of the Dancer”. Natesa had told Pat Rin the previous evening that she might tell him “one day” how she earned the name of Natesa the Assassin; it seems that day came sooner than she was probably expecting. (Considering the circumstances, I can see where she might have felt a certain kinship of spirit, once she’d got past her initial reaction.)
Day 310
Standard Year 1392
Blair Road
Surebleak
In which they’re fighting in the street with their children at their feet.
It’s an occupational hazard of people who read adventure stories, daydreaming about being in the story working alongside the heroes, but when I daydream about being in the Liaden Universe I always have to include some element of being swept up involuntarily, because otherwise my plan would be to hide under the nearest rock until it’s all over: the Department of the Interior scares me, and if I’m honest I have to admit that the heroes all know how to look after themselves and I really don’t have any relevant skills and there’s more ways for me to make things worse than to make things better. But there are a couple of places in the series that always tempt me to consider coming out from under the rock, in defense of innocent bystanders who can’t fend for themselves, and Jonni is one of those. (And then I start thinking about my odds of surviving on Surebleak long enough to achieve anything useful, and the rock starts looking good again.)
In the last scene, told from Natesa’s viewpoint, the ring Pat Rin wears is described as Korval’s Ring, which reminds me that on the day he obtained it he told Cheever it was a fake but only showed it to Natesa and allowed her to draw her own conclusions. It appears he has not subsequently found it necessary to correct any false impression she may have gained thereby.
Day 309
Standard Year 1392
Blair Road
Surebleak
In which the new boss gets to know the territory.
One of the many victims of the epidemic Pat Rin is told about in this chapter was Miri’s grandmother; she mentions it to Val Con back in Agent of Change.
Ms Audrey thinks she’s joking about Pat Rin deciding it’s too cold and installing central heating in the streets, but he’ll be making plans to very similar effect by the end of the book.
Day 308
Standard Year 1392
Blair Road
Surebleak
In which the people meet the new boss.
Following on from what I said last time, I note that when telling Ms Audrey about the Sinner’s Carpet Pat Rin is again selective with the details, and selects a different set than when talking to Jim Snyder.
On a subject I’ve been keeping track of: Ms Audrey’s guess is that Pat Rin’s preferred game is dice, rather than cards, but his reply is exquisitely uninformative.
Day 307
Standard Year 1392
Blair Road
Surebleak
In which the new boss is not the same as the old boss.
One hazard of reading a series like this in chronological order like this is that one occasionally encounters two stories that are set within a few days of each other but written years apart, and then it can be difficult to avoid noticing discrepancies.
The difference between the implication here about the carpet’s creator and the explicit description in “Persistence” is, I think, clearly a deliberate creative decision by the authors, and can be easily explained in-universe as a deliberate creative decision by Pat Rin, who would not misinform a potential buyer as to the value of a carpet but also knows the value of tuning the details to fit the audience. I can’t see any such clear-cut explanation for the fairly large difference between the price Pat Rin paid for the carpet in “Persistence” and the price he remembers paying here.
On the other hand, there are good juxtapositions, too. Snyder taking Cheever at face value is extra amusing coming so soon after Beba seeing right through him.