Tag Archives: Pilots Guild

Dragon Ship – Chapter 25

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Codrescu

In which Theo is reunited with with two old comrades.

The fact that cadets from Anlingdin are actively involved in the action against Codrescu brings back the worry of Theo having to be in direct conflict with somebody she knew personally. Although, after two years during which most of Theo’s age-mates would presumably have graduated, if the authorities didn’t get them out of the Academy some other way, I’m not sure how many friends she’s likely to still have in the current student body.

There’s a moment, when Theo is suggesting to Hevelin that he stay put and out of the way, when her speech pattern sounds like Rig Tranza’s. Which makes sense, and probably indicates that on some level she’s drawing on a memory of him as a model of politely but firmly suggesting a course of action.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 24

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Codrescu Station

In which Theo consults with the Guild Master.

It occurs to me that the publication dates of Dragon Ship and “Skyblaze” are close enough together that the authors were probably working on them around the same time. The reason it occurs to me now is that the reaction of the pilots at Tradedesk brings to mind the discussion in “Skyblaze” about the phrase “somebody ought to do something”, and the idea that some people feel that their responsibility ends once they’ve uttered the phrase, while others feel that uttering the phrase gives them a responsibility to be the somebody.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 23

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Codrescu Station

In which Bechimo reports a ship lost with all hands.

I don’t have anything to say about Theo’s half of the chapter; it’s one of those occasions where I feel the situation calls for something to be said but I don’t have the words for it.

I neglected to comment on Ban Del ser’Lindri’s first appearance, a few chapters back. I was suspicious of him immediately, the first time I read the novel, but I don’t know if that means anything because I had a predisposition: I’d heard a few things about the plot before I got around to reading it myself, and one of them was that Kamele was going to encounter somebody who meant her ill. Since she’s kept to herself on this trip, we’ve only seen her interact with two people, and I can’t bring myself to suspect the waitress at the Ice Cream Shoppe.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 22

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Codrescu Station

In which Bechimo arrives at Codrescu.

Theo’s verbal fencing with Eylot Control is very amusing – from a safe distance.

Eylot’s demands are several kinds of unreasonable, of course. The one that particularly strikes me is the newly-promulgated law against close approach to the planet without prior permission, the penalty for a first offense being impoundment and confiscation. Granting that Bechimo didn’t announce their arrival in a properly official way, I still find myself wondering whether, if they’d made a normal approach, Eylot Control would have thought to mention the new law before they came near enough to break it.

There’s a minor continuity lapse in this chapter, with Joyita announcing Bechimo‘s affiliation to the station as “Lucky Cat” instead of “Laughing Cat”. (I can’t think of any in-story reason for him to have got that wrong, either inadvertantly or deliberately.)

Dragon Ship – Chapter 21

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Codrescu Station

In which the occupants of Codrescu live in interesting times.

Guild Master Peltzer, Arndy Slayn and Qaichi Bringo were all, as we were reminded last chapter, present for Theo’s last visit to Codrescu in Saltation, which was exciting enough that they surely remember her name. (The cheerful comment that “The lady’s dangerous” is specifically a call-back to a conversation from that visit.)

We’ve seen more of Peltzer and Bringo since then, during Kara’s exciting time on the station in “Landed Alien”. That was also when we met Codrescu’s official station master; I noted at the time that “Landed Alien” goes out of its way to avoid establishing any personal details about the station master, including gender, so I’ll add that this chapter does at least tell us that he’s male (and that we’re unlikely to be seeing or learning any more about him in future).

Dragon Ship – Chapter 20

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Departing Tradedesk

In which there are pilots in peril.

I think it’s probably for the best that the Guild Office wasn’t open when Theo went to see about advertising for a captain for Theo. It might be a good way to find a captain for a normal ship, but Bechimo‘s kind of a special case and I’m not convinced there’d be a good chance of finding a good match without broadcasting just how special in more detail than would probably be wise.

That’s an interesting moment when Theo and Bechimo are butting heads over going to Eylot, and Joyita seems just as amused by the situation as Clarence does.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 19

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Tradedesk

In which there are many meetings.

…well, that seems a pretty clear statement that Bechimo was built in or shortly after Jethri’s time, with Arin’s ideas as guidance. There have been other people named Arin (there’s one in Crystal Dragon), and there might even have been another who was a noted thinker on subjects of interest to traders, but it’s not likely there was another who was all that and had a son who took a different path.

But we’re still stuck with the fact that the beginning of Ghost Ship states straight up that Bechimo has been awaiting a captain for over five hundred years – which is to say, since two hundred years before Jethri was born.

(On another, less contradictory, note, we have another hint to go with the one from “Intelligent Design” of a technological underpinning for psychic abilities in the Liaden Universe.)

Dragon Ship – Chapter 16

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Tradedesk

In which Clarence is thoroughly investigated.

In a way, this is the delayed appearance of a scene one might have expected to ensue from Clarence being recognised on the station by an unnamed party. Because he’s among friends, though, it goes a lot better than it might have done.

Probably everything Clarence says is true, but there are some gaps in his testimony that a less sympathetic questioner would have picked him up on: for instance, what was the name of the company he and O’dell used to work for? Likewise, I notice Grafton asks him if the accusation of being a Juntavas agent is true now, and neglects to ask if it was true when it was made.

The bit about how Clarence made the mistake of trusting O’dell because they came from the same place strikes an echo: one of the lessons Instructor yos’Senchul made sure Theo learned was that you can’t trust anybody just because they belong to a particular group. It seems Clarence didn’t have such good teachers, and had to learn it the hard way.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 15

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Tradedesk

In which Theo is not getting through to people.

I thought at first that the ChivinTrade guy’s repeated emphasis on there being no need for Theo to come down and get planet dust on her boots sounded like some kind of resentful prejudice against spacers, but the information that he’s afraid of something suggests other possibilities. It might be connected to the politics Theo was hoping there wasn’t going to be any of; Chustling is the planet with the procedural, rather than meteorological, landing restrictions.

Compared to the status report at the beginning of the book, when Win Ton first went into the Remastering Unit, there’s been improvement in most measures, with Neurological and Skeletal the same, and Dermal, Reproductive, and Urinary somewhat lower (which might be a sign that the Unit is currently focusing its efforts on the bits Win Ton needs to survive).

Dragon Ship – Chapter 14

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Tradedesk

In which Theo explores the shopping district and her options.

That’s two different ways the authors have signalled the correct pronunciation of “Bechimo” this book, when most of the names in this series are lucky to be accorded one. I remember thinking when I got this far the first time that the authors must have fielded a lot of queries about it, or had to put up with a lot of mispronunciations, to expend so much effort on making it clear. Or maybe only the first time was for the benefit of the readers, and this time is an acknowledgement that if people who are unfamiliar with the name are liable to get it wrong in the real world the same is true of characters in the story.

I’m going to make note of the bit about the Department being able to implant a hidden course of action into a person’s mind, in case it comes up again later. Well, it has at least once, I guess, if that’s what Agent bar’Obin used to reel in Rys in the written-later Necessity’s Child. And, of course, we might already have seen it in action without knowing it. Though I figure they didn’t use it on the guy they sent to assassinate Miri at the party, or he wouldn’t have been deflected by his personal qualms.

The sections of the story told from Theo’s point of view are increasingly including explicit references to Theo’s temper and the effects it has on others, which indicates an increased amount of self-awareness on her part.

Another interesting moment reflecting Theo’s personal evolution is when, without apparently thinking anything of it, she uses the phrase “back home” to refer to returning to Bechimo.