Tag Archives: Primadonna

Dragon Ship – Chapter 10

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Landing Pad Number Nine
Regent’s Airfield Number One
Cresthaller

In which Bechimo takes on cargo at an airport.

Twenty-three Standard years is a long time for the pods to have been in storage. That means they’ve been in storage longer than Shan’s been a Jump pilot, let alone a Master Trader – and longer than Theo’s been alive.

And another drib of what’s happened to Daav. I suspect the authors of stringing out the scenes that don’t involve Theo so that no two of them appear without a bit of Theo in between. There are probably good and sufficient reasons for this; after all, it is officially a book about Theo.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 8

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Frenzel
Chaliceworks Aggregations

In which Chaliceworks is more careful than brave.

A couple of interesting things in the reactions to Theo. One is the bit about her “tools”, which presumably means her lacework.

The other is the furore about her working for inner calm, which suggests (especially the bit where they doubt any man could have taught it to her) that it’s not any of the usual calming exercises used by pilots of all genders. The fact that she learned it from her father makes me suspect that it might be the one he learned from the wise woman Rockflower when he was a young scout. In that case, the reaction would be proportionate (and not unlike the reaction it got from the Healers when Daav used it at the end of Scout’s Progress).

There was a meeting between Shan and Lomar Fasholt in Conflict of Honors, set eight years before this. Shan saw trouble coming even then, and so did she – she was making plans to leave Swunaket when she could wrangle her business into a portable form, and he offered her his assistance when the time came. If his most recent information is that she’s still trading out of Swunaket Port, it would appear she never took him up on that offer.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 4

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Arriving Frenzel

In which Bechimo acquires an Executive Officer.

The bit about the Compressed Info Package containing all the ship information that port needs to facilitate docking makes me think back to Pat Rin and Cheever arriving at McGee, and Cheever reminding Pat Rin to tell the port that the ship used an old-style protocol. I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t be sending a CIP themselves, since it’s implied here to be standard procedure, and I’d think that kind of information would be in the CIP. On the other hand, Cheever says it’s worth mentioning because otherwise the port personnel might make an incorrect assumption, and I can believe he was figuring that, having made the assumption, they might skim over the relevant bit of the CIP and see what they expected to see unless it was backed up by a verbal reminder.

It occurred to me to wonder, while Bechimo‘s crew were dealing with Frenzel traffic control, whether they’re making much use of Bechimo‘s special method of space travel. Then I remembered that the last two chapters have been headed some variation on “Between Jumps”, which suggests not. Several reasons for that come to mind; one is that Theo probably still doesn’t know enough about the method to trust it, and another is that they’ve been specifically hired to test out a route that will presumably be followed in future by ships that don’t have Bechimo‘s advantages, so they need to follow it in appropriate fashion to get good data. And, of course, arriving by mysterious means would run the risk of annoying and puzzling traffic control.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 40

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which various preparations are made.

And while Val Con is off dealing with his metaphorical bombshell, Miri is stuck with another one – which is going to become rather less metaphorical if it’s not dealt with promptly.

This is one of Korval’s weak points at the moment: there aren’t very many members of the clan, all things considered, and there is such a lot to do. And if it should happen that something comes up when everybody who could do it is already elsewhere, there’s going to be serious trouble. (Come to think of it, this situation was somewhat foreshadowed earlier, with the difficulty they had lining up a suitable group to go and retrieve the children from their hiding place.) Now I’m maybe a bit surprised that the Department hasn’t tried to do anything with that, but then again maybe they don’t have any good ideas about what trouble they could cause that would require a specific clanmember to deal with; they only stumbled on this one by accident.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 6

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Surebleak Spaceport

In which cold Surebleak offers Delm Korval a warm welcome.

Jen Sar Kiladi has “been lost”, which might add to the awkwardness if Kamele ever takes it into her head to demand his safe return. One might say that it offers instead the opportunity to tell Kamele, with some degree of accuracy, that Kiladi has died, but I don’t think that would work for long and in any case I’m confident Daav knows as well as Theo does that he owes Kamele the whole truth. His reluctance to tell her so far has been about trying to spare her the further trouble of being dragged into Korval’s orbit at a dangerous time, not about shirking his duty.

It does raise the question of why Kiladi has slipped away. Perhaps he felt, or whatever part of Daav keeps him working, that he’d served his purpose: Daav has said more than once that he’s completed the Balance in which Kiladi was such a useful tool, and he’s also fulfilled his original purpose in the sense that he was only supposed to stick around until he was discovered, which he now has been. And letting go of Kiladi presumably means there’s more room in Daav’s head for Aelliana. But I find myself remembering that Aelliana’s most striking recent increase in ability was associated with Daav eating one of the Tree’s seed pods, and wondering: Did Kiladi-Daav make the decision that Kiladi’s time was done, or was the decision made for him?

That’s an intriguing background detail, the hint at friction between the Pilots’ Guild and the Federated Trade Commission. I don’t think we’ve heard of the Federated Trade Commission before, at least by that name; perhaps it’s descended from the trade commission that was around in Jethri’s time. I’m tempted to speculate, on the basis of no evidence whatever, that it’s a Terran organisation that takes issue with the Pilots’ Guild because, as we know, the latter is a case of harmonious collaboration between Terrans and Liadens. But then again, we know from various bits with Shan that he was certified as a Master Trader by a Trade Commission that is likewise a collaboration. (I’m sufficiently attached to my hypothesis to wonder if there’s more than one Trade Commission. Perhaps the Federated Trade Commission is a smaller federation of traders who don’t want to be involved in anything that requires collaboration with Liadens. But now I’m really speculating.)

Ghost Ship – Chapter 5

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Arin’s Toss
Solcintra Port
Liad

In which Theo’s father tells her the truth.

Theo’s conversation with her father is one of those things that’s obviously significant but I don’t know how to talk about. (I do wonder if it helps Theo to learn that Val Con’s mother was a respected scholar. It seems like it might make the whole preposterous situation feel slightly more familiar.)

Either Theo’s taxi ride from the Port or her nap, or both, must have consumed a considerable amount of time, since it is now the day set for Korval’s departure and Theo left the Port at dawn the previous day. (Local calendar, explicitly stated, so it’s not one of those things where the Standard Day changes halfway through the local day.) No, excuse me: Theo went to call a taxi at dawn; maybe the city’s in such a commotion at the moment that it took most of the day to turn up.

The detail about Trealla Fantrol is interesting; they couldn’t take it with them, but they weren’t going to let it fall into anyone else’s hands. In which light, I wonder what it says that they didn’t mind letting Liad keep the formal gardens.

Tomorrow: “Moon on the Hills”, then back to Chapter 6.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 3

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Jelaza Kazone
Liad

In which Delm Korval considers Theo’s problem.

Not sure what to make of Theo thinking that Val Con looks familiar for some reason other than resembling their father. She hasn’t met any of the other relatives yet, and I’m pretty sure she’s never seen his mother — or has she? They talked about the Caylon at the Academy, but I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned them having pictures of her. (And of course if that’s it Theo wouldn’t be able to place the resemblance, because nobody’s mentioned to her who Val Con’s mother is.)

As for her assessment of Val Con as biddable and lacking in spark, it’s a choice between politely suppressed laughter and a wide-eyed Bugs Bunny “She don’t know him very well, do she?”

Until Val Con mentioned it, I don’t think I’d thought about the fact that Korval doesn’t just have its house and Tree to get off-planet, but all of the many ships it’s collected over the years (those that aren’t elsewhere already). I suppose it will have to allow its several shipyards to be seized – unless they’ve already been sold off or otherwise passed into other hands – but Korval never leaves a ship behind.

Saltation – Chapter 41

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Arin’s Toss
Volmer

In which Theo is off to Liad sooner than expected.

It’s tempting to speculate, given the coincidence of the deadline, that the Uncle’s rush job has something to do with Korval’s departure from Liad. The trouble is, why would it be a rush job in that case? The Council gave Korval 144 days notice, which is tight for an established clan to gather up all its belongings but plenty of time for a nimble operator to line up a single courier.

Unless, perhaps, Volmer is so far from Liad that by the time news arrives of Korval’s expulsion, hot on the heels of the news of Solcintra being attacked, the 144 days are half over and there’s only just enough time for a courier to hotfot it back to Liad if they leave immediately.

The trouble with that is… well, there’s two problems:

One is that, if you break it down, that means it takes about 70 days for the news to travel from Liad to Volmer, and another 70 days for Theo to travel from Volmer to Liad. (The exact amounts are arguable – for one thing, the news probably travelled somewhat less urgently than Theo, so perhaps the split is more like 85-55 – but not enough to affect the point.) The point is, that means Theo’s dash from Volmer to Liad would last weeks without stopping for food or fuel. And since it’s specified that it consists of five Jumps, that means each Jump would be at least a week in itself. And that just doesn’t seem right.

The second problem is that we already know how far Volmer is from Liad, more or less, and it isn’t that far. We’re told in Agent of Change that Lufkit to Volmer is two days at a reasonable speed, and in Carpe Diem we learn that a suitably motivated pilot can go from Lufkit to Liad in another two days. Even at a comfortable amble – no, put it this way: even if the news travelled from Liad to Volmer by Clutch ship, and then Theo travelled from Volmer to Liad by Clutch ship, the entire round trip would take up only half of the 144 days.

Even if one throws up one’s hands and decides the Uncle’s rush job is just a coincidence, there’s still an issue, because Theo arrived on Volmer within twelve hours of the news that Liad had been attacked; are we to assume that Theo made the trip from Volmer to Liad in a few days in response to news that took months to travel the other direction? Well, perhaps we are; Shan does say in Conflict of Honors that news can take months to travel if it’s left to whoever happens to be going in the right direction instead of sent directly. And, after all, is there anyone on Liad who has any reason to send the news directly to Volmer? (Well, I expect the Uncle has someone keeping an eye on things there. But he could well have received the news quickly and decided to keep it to himself, leaving everyone else on Volmer to find out when the news arrived by a slower and more public channel.)

Tomorrow: Chapter 42 and I Dare Chapter 58. The order in which to read them is thereby left to pilot’s choice.

Saltation – Chapter 39

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Primadonna
Volmer

In which Theo meets a Dulsey and an Uncle.

It’s not clear whether this Dulsey and this Uncle are the same Dulsey and the same Uncle that Jethri ven’Deelin knew a few centuries ago, but if they are that might have something to do with Theo finding them both indeterminate of age. (Win Ton described this Uncle as “one who fell heir to the title”, which could be interpreted several ways, particularly bearing in mind the whole business back then about Uncle Yuri’s “younger brothers”.) I notice that the description of the Uncle, when he appears, carefully avoids any of the details – height, build, eye colour, hair colour – that might give a basis for comparison with descriptions we’ve previously been given of Uncle(s).

Saltation – Chapter 38

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Conference Room Able
Pilots Guildhall
Volmer

In which the bad news keeps on coming.

Caratunk is a planet we’ve heard of before: it’s where Jethri’s father met Iza Gobelyn.

And we heard about that in the same chapter which first informed us that “there are secrets in all families”, a phrase that’s associated with a particular family, and a particular person who is likely to be the same person Win Ton is on his way to meet. It amuses me that he’s implicitly included in Win Ton’s reference last chapter to unspecified people “even less reputable” than Scouts or Juntavas.

The fact that Win Ton was at Nev’lorn when the fighting broke out is interesting, and offers an additional reason for the Department to have decided the time was right for overt action. (And prompts one to wonder what might have happened if he and Daav had encountered each other there.)

And now the bad news from home has caught up with Theo, having been somewhat delayed by Kamele’s lack of familiarity with the options for sending an urgent message long-distance to a person in motion. There’s an irony here: Theo does know where to find her father – or would, if she had the means to link together several things she’s learned recently – but, lacking those means, she doesn’t know that she knows.