Bechimo
Crew Lockers
In which news is received of absent friends.
There I go again: the question I asked last entry is immediately answered, and not in the way I expected.
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The Gathering Edge – Chapter 26
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The Gathering Edge – Chapter 25
Bechimo
Sync Shift
In which some things are opened that had been carefully sealed.
I don’t think I said this when it came up earlier: I like that Theo’s friends don’t all like each other just because all they like Theo. And that, on the other hand, it’s not held against them that they don’t; that’s just the way it goes, sometimes.
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The Gathering Edge – Chapter 23
Bechimo
Aubernet System
In which Bechimo arrives in a new place.
Lots of technical details in this chapter, which is impresive but not the kind of thing I personally find most entertaining to read or talk about.
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The Gathering Edge – Chapter 19
Bechimo
In which the pathfinders seek context.
I have a feeling Clarence’s tale-spinning may be intending to convey information beyond the obvious, and perhaps a warning about the inadvisability of getting on the wrong side of Theo and her crew. In which case I don’t think the warning has been heard, or perhaps it’s been heard but laid aside as insignificant in the face of necessity.
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Dragon Ship – Chapter 22
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 20
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
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 18
Tradedesk
In which Laughing Cat confers with Carresens.
There are a lot of names in this chapter familiar from the Jethri books, although a large part of that is retroactive, since the Carresens family (and the Denobli family, who were a separate group back then) only appear in Trade Secret, which was written after this.
One name that isn’t retroactively familiar – though I didn’t recognise it myself the first time I read this novel, because I’m terrible with names when I’m not taking careful notes – is that of the thinker Arin, mentioned by Pilot Denobli, who was Jethri’s father Arin Gobelyn. And as such it’s probably not entirely a coincidence that the ship Theo flew for the Uncle bears his name, since the Uncle was Arin’s … let’s say “brother”, with the understanding that the Uncle’s family tree is kind of complicated.
(And the bit about Bechimo being well-suited to enact Arin’s ideas brings us back around to the idea of Bechimo having been created in Jethri’s time, only to founder once again on the fact that the numbers simply don’t add up.)
Pilot Denobli’s hair reminds me of two things. The hair itself brings to mind the elaborate spacer hairstyles mentioned in Trade Secret, which makes sense considering that Pilot Denobli is descended from the same spacer culture. The way he’s always fiddling with it makes me wonder about Theo’s first meeting with the Uncle, when he kept fiddling with his hair.
While we’re elaborating tenuous links between the Carresens and the Uncle, I’ve noticed something about their ship named OchoBalrog. The “Balrog” half has an obvious connection to the ship of that name owned by the Denobli family in Trade Secret, but we’ve seen the name Ocho once before in an entirely different context: it was the name of one of Dulsey’s siblings, way back in Crystal Soldier.
Dragon Ship – Chapter 14
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.
Dragon Ship – Chapter 12
Spwao System Arrival
In which there are several updates on Daav’s condition.
Although the narrator seems to be making a point of not referring to the pilot in the Uncle’s care as “Daav”, or by any other name – the only time he’s named is when the Uncle uses the name by which he knows him – which is interesting, though I’m not sure what the point might be.
Olwen sel’Iprith is another familiar name from the past. As she says, she’s an old colleague of Daav’s who knew him very well indeed; she appears or is mentioned in both the Daav-and-Aelliana books, and plays an incidental but unknowingly influential role in Local Custom.