Tag Archives: Phobai Murchison

Ghost Ship – Chapter 17

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Portmaster’s Office
Tokeoport

In which Theo meets her new ship.

Here’s another mention of the Federated Trade Commission. What it portends that an operative of the Department is operating under their name, I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s likely that the FTC is simply a front for the Department. It might just be that Operative pel’Naria believes she can take their name in vain with impunity, at least here on Tokeoport where a large pile of cash is the best of credentials.

Either way, I’m thinking the Portmaster, whatever his other faults, shows good sense in not relaxing his guard before they’ve left the room.

Saltation – Chapter 19

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Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Win Ton takes Theo to dinner.

Although, as when yos’Senchul and Veradantha included Theo in their dinner plans, it might be that the flight time and experience is as great a gift as the dinner. (Which is not to knock the dinner; one is getting the impression that a dinner at Howsenda Hugglelans is no small thing itself.)

When the kissing gets started, Win Ton kisses Theo’s temple, her neck, and her ear; it’s Theo who kisses Win Ton on the lips, a move he’s not expecting. We’ve seen this before with couples kissing across the Liaden-Terran cultural divide; between Liadens, face-to-face kissing is an especially intimate gesture not usually added to the repertoire until a relationship is considerably further advanced than this.

Saltation – Chapter 9

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History of Piloting
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Theo meets Kara ven’Arith.

Theo is learning a lot of family history without knowing it, lately. Although I suppose that was to some extent inevitable once she started learning piloting, considering how much the history of piloting is bound up with the history of Korval.

I think Inspector Johansen is being unfair, here: it would have been one thing to be down on Theo for not doing all the assigned reading, if that was what she had done, and I would even allow that it would have been reasonable to be somewhat disappointed by the class’s lack of initiative — but to mock them for not doing something they hadn’t been called on to do seems to me to be pushing it, especially since I get the impression that Johansen was counting on them to have not done it so she could be grumpy about it. Or maybe I’m being unfair now, and she was just in a bad mood about something.

Kara, with her own version of having grown up between Liaden and Terran cultures and a willingness to share her understanding, could be a useful friend for Theo to have. (Not that I’m saying, of course, that usefulness ought to be an only or a primary criterion for a friendship.)

Fledgling – Chapter 40

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Vashtara
Mauve Level
Stateroom

In which Jen Sar attends a meeting.

I’ve said before that one of the things I’m enjoying about doing this re-read is being able to trace connections and find repeated names that I wouldn’t have noticed at the speed I normally read. In this chapter, the familiar name is Professor Skilings, revealed here as one of the conspirators, but already known to us from Chapter Sixteen as a high-ranking member of the faculty with a reputation for being a bad enemy to people who gain her enmity, and also incidentally the lady whose play for Jen Sar, though unrewarded, inspired Kamele to place her relationship with him on an official footing.

Sub-Chancellor Kylin’s name, on the other hand, doesn’t ring any bells.

It’s interesting that Jen Sar’s response to having a gun brandished at him is to hide behind the furniture. It’s possible that he’s playing it safe, since the years he’s spent living on a safe world might after all have dulled his edge to the point that he can’t be sure of being able to handle the situation, but don’t think I believe that, and I rather suspect he’s playing safe more because nobody on Delgado knows that he has experience being at the wrong end of a gun, and he’d prefer to keep it that way.

Kamele’s hand gestures, the ones which Theo finds reminiscent of hand-talk without being actual signs she recognises, might be Liaden gestures Kamele has picked up off Jen Sar. I seem to recall similar hand gestures being used by Liadens in conversation in past stories; the clearing-away gesture in particular sounds familiar.

Fledgling – Chapter 39

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Melchiza Station

In which Theo and Kamele start for home, Jen Sar enters the home stretch, and Hafley can never go home again.

Clyburn stops pretending to be the kind of bubble-headed male no Delgadan would suspect of being a criminal mastermind, and is revealed to be, among other things, a pilot. Which suggests further covering-up from his relative in Admin, since he wasn’t issued a pilot’s ID when the research team arrived. It also makes me wonder again about the divided motivations of the blue-shirts: if he’s a pilot and a native Melchizan he must have known enough about how Melchizan pilots think to be able to predict that they’d protect Theo. Although that assumes he knew Theo was a pilot, and I get the impression that came as an unpleasant surprise to him on the bus; apparently he wasn’t paying enough attention to Theo on the Vashtara to notice how she’d been spending her time. He must be kicking himself for that now (or, if he’s the kind of person who is never at fault for their own lapses of judgement, finding some excuse to blame Theo).

For all the trouble it’s caused in the past, Theo’s pilot nature has been really helpful several times this trip, both in obvious ways like protecting her at the Transit School and in indirect ways like leading her into a situation where she can, unlike the sheltered Kamele, recognise violent intent in time to avoid danger.

Fledgling – Chapter 37

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Melchiza
City of Treasures

In which Theo is getting along better than might have been expected.

I have a suspicion that Hafley is telling the truth when she says that she would have had Beltaire come along, given the choice, but not with the motive she suggests. Until the research team produces solid evidence, Beltaire’s observations are the key to their case, and if she were to come along on an interplanetary journey you never know but that something might happen to her — even without the hints we’ve been getting that something is likely to happen to her in any case if she ever returns to Melchiza.

Her accusation that Kamele is too ambitious, on the other hand, is a classic case of accusing one’s opponent of one’s own sins.

I think I see, now, what the point of having Theo assigned to the Parole Class was: So that it could be revealed at an appropriate moment in an attempt to make Kamele abandon her research and rush off to rescue Theo — which would probably, given the security set-up, only be possible if the whole research team agrees to leave the archive with her, thereby bringing the research trip to an end — or else to reduce her usefulness to the research effort by distracting her if she does remain in the archive. (An appropriate moment being one after Hafley’s cover has already been blown to such an extent that it won’t be giving anything away to reveal that she has secret knowledge about what’s been happening to Theo.) I don’t think it’ll work, though, precisely because Hafley’s accusation of ambition isn’t true; Kamele is here in service of a greater cause than her own ambition, and knows that she can’t turn away now even for Theo’s sake. I doubt she’s going to be badly distracted, either; she’s already proven that she’s made of sterner stuff than Hafley thinks, and I suspect Hafley’s just given her more reason to concentrate on getting the job done.

Fledgling – Chapter 36

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Melchiza
Transit School

In which Theo and Kamele make progress.

On Melchiza, pilots are recognised as rare and special people, and apparently this means that Melchizan pilot culture is affected by the Melchizan attitude that leaders should stand aloof and not hold themselves back trying to help others less special. Inspector Vidige’s lesson about a pilot bearing sole responsibility for the decisions he must make is not entirely new (I’m particularly reminded of Aelliana in Scout’s Progress, and the lesson that she must learn to back her own judgement if she wishes to be a pilot), but the emphasis is different. At least it’s somewhat softened by Pilot-Instructor Arman’s comment which suggests that Melchizan pilots do form bonds of loyalty with their crew (like the brother’s friends in the folk tale?); self-sufficiency is one thing, but if they’d been taking it to the extent of not even trusting a co-pilot that would have been asking for serious trouble sooner or later.

Fledgling – Chapter 35

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Efraim Agricultural Zone

In which Jen Sar, Theo, and Kamele pass beyond the gatekeepers.

It’s good that it’s Appletorn who gets to explain to the Chapelia why their course of action is not as desirable as they might have thought; if too much of the work of saving Delgado fell to Jen Sar the outsider, one might start wondering whether it was worth the effort of saving. Looked at another way, it simply makes sense that it’s Appletorn who produces that explanation; after all, he’s the man whose profession is Advertancy, the practice of knowing what you’re getting yourself into.

Incidentally, it’s looking increasingly likely that my question from way back about whether the Chapelia has any male members can be answered in the negative.

Pilot-Instructor Arman’s test of Theo seems rather unforgiving; if she hadn’t known how to handle a bowli ball properly, she could have been seriously injured. Is it that if she had been laying an unearned claim to the bowli ball, it would have cancelled out the testimony of her dancing and left her, in Arman’s eyes, not enough of a pilot to deserve protection?

I’m getting the distinct impression that Hafley knows about Theo being reassigned to the Parole Class, although since they’re now being held incommunicado she has no way of knowing that Theo hasn’t gone. And that makes me wonder: since they are being held incommunicado, there’s no way of using Theo’s situation to exert pressure on Kamele, which makes it look like nothing more productive than spite at Kamele standing up to her about continuing the research.

Fledgling – Chapter 34

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Delgado
Efraim Agricultural Zone

In which Jen Sar and Theo each enter unexplored territory.

The folk-tale, and Theo’s response to it, shows a lot about the differences between Delgado and Melchiza. The moral ascribed to it is revealing about how Melchiza comes to be the way it is. The difference between Delgadan and Melchizan ideas of appropriate emergencies for childrens’ television perhaps says more about Delgado than Melchiza, or at least shows Delgado as standing further than Melchiza from present-day America on this subject.

The dance around Theo’s class assignment suggests that Melchiza’s Security apparatus, though omnipresent, is not directed always to the same goal. The order for Theo to be moved into the Parole Class must have come from some branch of Security — one suspects the branch which contains that helpful lady with the blue buttonhole who was so eager to help the research team avoid doing any research, or perhaps, if it’s a distinction with a difference, whoever might have been on the other end of Hafley’s mumu before she was made to turn it off — but Pilot-Instructor Arman seems to be of the opinion that whatever they’re up to is not worth endangering the health of a pilot.

Fledgling – Chapter 31

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Vashtara
Breakfast All Year

In which Cho and Win Ton bid farewell to Theo.

When I finished reading this chapter, my eyes might have been a bit wet too.

Despite saying to Theo earlier that very few of her teachers on Delgado are likely to be pilots, Cho knows that there’s at least one, because Theo already knew some piloting lore when they met. She must have a good idea who it is, too; Theo’s told her outright that Professor Kiladi was the one who introduced her to the lacework, and probably has likewise mentioned that it was him who chose and proposed the Suwello lessons (and if she hasn’t, Cho’s the type to have been able to find it out anyway). But I think she’s refraining from being specific at least partly by way of nudging Theo herself to the realization of the role Jen Sar has played in her education.