Surebleak Port
Scout Headquarters
In which Clonak ter’Meulen sees a ghost.
Looks like the separately-published Neogenesis outtake describing part of Daav and Aelliana’s visit with Kamele remains in continuity; it fits neatly into the space left between their last scene in Neogenesis and their first scene here.
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[Note: This story was originally published in the chapbook Fortune’s Favors as an untitled fragment, but on being reprinted in A Liaden Universe Constellation, Volume 5 it was given the title “Opportunity to Seize”. Accordingly, I have renamed this blog entry, which was previously “Neogenesis – Outtake”.]
Surebleak
Dudley Lane and Farley Avenue
In which Daav, Aelliana, and Kamele embrace opportunity.
As I read the afterword, this chapter was left out of the novel only because there wasn’t a convenient place to put it without interrupting the flow of the story, not because the events it describes have been superceded. Therefore, unless and until there’s a more definite declaration (or Accepting the Lance comes out and blatantly contradicts it), I’m going to assume it’s canonical.
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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.
Hoselteen
In which Kamele receives news of her daughter.
I like that the news of Theo’s activities comes from news sources that show a range of degrees of reliability and accuracy, where a writer less committed to worldbuilding might have just had one. (I particularly appreciate the detail of the biased summary on the Eylot situation saying “Eylot threatened with interdiction; vessel destroyed”, which makes it sound like somebody threatened Eylot for no reason and then destroyed a ship, instead of Eylot destroying a ship and being threatened with consequences.)
Joyita has acquired a fourth ring since last time they were mentioned, which was at Velaskiz Rotundo, just before Kara signed on as crew – and putting that way makes me wonder if that’s the key. Perhaps the fourth ring represents Kara, and the original two represent Theo and Clarence… or Theo and Win Ton, the holders of the first two ship keys, and the third was added at the point when Bechimo accepted Clarence as a crew member and not just a temporary nuisance. (It appears, I think, at about the same point that Bechimo stops objecting to being addressed as “Chimmy”.)
Frenzel
Chaliceworks Aggregations
In which Theo counts her blessings.
The placement of the scene with Kamele says something about the authors’ priorities. If it had appeared a few chapters ago, it would have contrasted obviously (perhaps a bit too obviously?) with the scene at Jelaza Kazone which reminds us that the person Kamele is going to Surebleak to see isn’t there, and nobody knows when he’ll be back. Placed here, it instead invites the reader to compare and contrast the strong-mindedness of mother and daughter. It also gives context, for readers who didn’t know it or had forgotten, for Theo’s musings about her family in the following scene.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which the party becomes unexpectedly exciting.
More unnamed party guests. I’m particularly interested in the “buxom, jolly lady whose face was older than her hair”, because that amount of description implies that we’re expected to recognise her, but it’s not ringing any bells.
The idea that Theo’s ability to see pilots is her touch of Korval strangeness has been sneaking up gradually since it started in Fledgling. The early examples were often of her identifying pilots in motion, where it was plausible it was just a case of recognising something about how they moved. It’s developed gradually from there, to the point where in this novel she’s capable of not only identifying a pilot on sight but instantly assessing what grade they have attained or could attain, and now the definitely non-straightforward example of identifying a pilot who hasn’t even been born yet. Another thing that camouflaged the nature of the gift, which Theo alludes to, is that it came on her when she was seeing pilots for the first time after living her entire life on a planet with no pilots that she knew of, so it would make sense that she’d be alert to the differences. But another way of looking at that, which I think Daav alludes to, is that it was the period of her life when her half-formed instincts were shaking out and getting into adult shape, the period where one might expect a psychic gift to manifest. (Though without the trip to Melchiza she’d perhaps have been restricted to noticing that certain people were different in some way without being able to name the difference, just as I suspect she wouldn’t have been able to distinguish grades of pilot now without her education at Anlingdin.)
History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado
In which Kamele explains her reasoning.
…and, just to keep the tension going, the progress of the party is interrupted with a chapter set somewhere completely different.
There’s a thing the authors of this series do that I’ve been noticing and appreciating on this re-read, where the reappearance of a character is preceded, a chapter or two earlier, by somebody mentioning that character, to remind the reader of the character’s existence. In this case, we have the return of Ella ben Suzan, whom Theo happened to mention last chapter.
(That mention might have been confusing for a first time reader, since Theo referred to her as “Aunt Ella”, after having told Kareen in a yet earlier chapter that she had no aunts on Delgado… except that she also, in that same chapter, remarked on the fact that sometimes people get called things like “Aunt” or “Grandfather” by people they’re not technically any such relation to. That’s craftsmanship, that is.)
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which the housewarming party begins.
I recognise from their descriptions some of the party guests whose names Theo doesn’t know – the man with the eyeglasses is certainly Penn Kalhoon, and I’m reasonably confident that the lady in the crimson jacket is Ms Audrey – but I’m not sure about the man in the lab coat talking to Shan. Of course, it may well be someone we haven’t been introduced to yet ourselves.
More foreshadowing is coming together: We’ve had several interludes remarking on the campaign to sabotage the road repairs and school building, with one last chapter establishing that the policy of sabotaging machinery but leaving people unharmed – in spite, as we were reminded, of Surebleak’s usual more direct response to disliked persons – was deliberate and insisted on by the campaign’s mastermind (who was not named, but in context and given the reported attitude is very likely an agent of the Department). And now we see that Val Con and Miri are perhaps letting their guard down a bit on the assumption that people who have made a policy of not hurting anybody will continue to do so – which is, I suspect, the intended effect of the policy. It is not only Korval who does things in layers.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which Theo has breakfast with Val Con’s mother.
Theo is perfectly right to ask whether Kamele knew about Aelliana, and Aelliana blatantly dodges the question. (It’s probably true that her available time is limited, but that doesn’t mean she’s not also using it as an excuse.) Particularly given the fact that Theo recognises Aelliana as an aspect of the Jen Sar Kiladi she thought she knew – the Jen Sar Kiladi her mother fell in love with – this is going to be an additional complication in the complicated explanation Daav owes Kamele.
And it looks like Kamele’s going to be wanting that explanation sooner rather than later…
Bechimo
In which Theo has a few things to say about Bechimo‘s priorities.
Interesting that Uncle is on Bechimo‘s Disallowed List, when he told Theo he saw the ship when it was under construction. Did he start out working with the Builders, and do something that caused a falling-out? Or maybe the Builders already didn’t like him, and he only got to see the under-construction Bechimo briefly and had to sneak in to do it. (Either way, it might be support for the idea that Uncle’s shipyard in Trade Secret isn’t the yard that produced Bechimo, but a later attempt by Uncle to replicate the achievement.)
Because I need to imagine it looking like something, and because it seems appropriately science-fictional, I always picture Bechimo‘s discovery looking like the Utah teapot.