Vandar
Kosmorn Gore
In which Miri remembers Klamath.
Miri’s story, and her expectation that it will turn Val Con against her, is one of those things that I have feelings about but not many words. I’m more comfortable talking about incidental things, like Miri mentioning in passing that very few people succeed in entirely kicking a Cloud habit, which makes the Department’s assumptions about her seem like a bit less of an unprofessional reach.
Vandar
Winterfair
In which Val Con meets Tyl Von sig’Alda, Clan Rugare.
Given that it’s been suggested that Cloud targets the user’s most traumatic memories, it’s interesting that its effect on Tyl Von sig’Alda seems to have been to make him forget basically everything about being an Agent of Change.
(Also interesting: that although he is confused when Val Con mentions his ship, he doesn’t hesitate when Val Con asks for his first aid kit. Presumably carrying one of those is a basic pilot thing that he was doing even before he fell into the hands of the Department.)
sig’Alda’s recollection of his occupation suggests he’s not a former Scout, unless he left the Scouts for some reason to become a pilot-for-hire. I was going to say that it seems unlikely a Scout would choose such a course, but then I remembered that we know of a Scout who did very nearly that, and choice didn’t come into it: Val Con’s own father was called home from the Scouts to serve the necessity of his Clan, and later became a courier pilot at least partly because it was the closest he could get, while still serving the necessity of his Clan, to being a Scout again. And it could also happen more directly, that a Scout might be called home to serve the Clan’s necessity by being a pilot-for-hire, if the Clan’s necessity were that all its children be supporting it with paid occupations. (I think I’ve just argued myself out of believing that we’ve learned anything definite about whether sig’Alda was a Scout.)
Vandar
Winterfair
In which Zamir Meltz has something to say.
For someone who appears so little, and particularly as one whose appearances have consisted mainly of telling Hakan off when his enthusiasms run away with him, Hakan’s father has turned out quite well-rounded.
Agent sig’Alda remarks again on the luck that has preserved his life so far. It occurs to me that it may not be his luck — after all, Val Con needs him to stay alive too. And we’ve heard a lot about how Line yos’Phelium rides the Luck, but I don’t recall having heard anything similar said about Line sig’Alda.
Vandar
Winterfair
In which Tyl Von sig’Alda is a man with a plan.
sig’Alda shows a blind spot again: even after he carefully notes the fact that Val Con is heading for Miri’s last known location, it doesn’t occur to him that Miri herself might be the objective. Granted, he doesn’t know that Val Con knows Miri’s location, but then again he doesn’t know he doesn’t, and given how many of his scenarios involve pre-arranged plots against the Department you’d think a simple pre-arranged rendezvous wouldn’t be difficult to consider. But no; sig’Alda can’t imagine Val Con arranging to meet up with Miri, at least not for her own sake, because he can’t imagine wanting to see Miri again.
The Department really does spend a lot of time considering scenarios in which people are plotting against them, it seems. An occupational hazard of spending all one’s time plotting against people, perhaps. It shows up again when sig’Alda, having concluded that Val Con and Miri were deliberately signalling to someone on the radio, decides it was most likely a pre-arranged signal to a co-conspirator. (It’s interesting that he doesn’t consider the possibility that they might have been signalling to him, although to be fair I suppose that would seem less likely after Val Con’s marked lack of enthusiasm when he answered the signal.)
Vandar
Winterfair
In which Val Con speaks to a compatriot and a brother.
Val Con slipping out of his Department conditioning with the l’apeleka he learned from Edger is interesting in several ways.
One way is that it’s an example of things that go around coming around. If Val Con hadn’t been the kind of person who would and could befriend a Turtle, he’d be in serious trouble now (if he wasn’t already dead, back in any of the several incidents where his friendship with Edger has already helped pull him out of the fire).
It’s also a sign of one of the Department’s blind spots. They must have known Val Con had a history with the Clutch — they have access to Val Con’s service history, and even if they didn’t the fact that Edger lent him a ship would have been a big hint — but they don’t seem to have thought much of it. It’s not so much that I expect them to have had a counter for the l’apeleka specifically — I wouldn’t be surprised if Val Con is the only non-Turtle who knows much about it, and certainly even if an agent of the Department tried to get a Turtle to talk about Turtle things he wouldn’t get far — but even if they didn’t know about l’apeleka specifically, they might have considered the possibility that Val Con had learned something unusual from the Clutch, and they didn’t. All the time we’ve seen the Department spend thinking about what lessons they need to learn from Val Con’s past, and his time with the Clutch never comes up. It’s like they take it as read that no non-Liaden culture could produce anything the Department needs to worry about.
Vandar
Winterfair
In which Tyl Von sig’Alda offers a gift.
I do not think sig’Alda is as proficient at reading Miri’s moods as he thinks he is. There are several other possibilities that might produce a paling of the complexion, a roughening of the voice, and a brightness of the eyes, and every one of them is more likely than the explanation he prefers.
Similarly, I suspect there are gaps in his grasp of spoken Terran, which is probably sleep-learned and unlikely to have been practiced much with colloquial native speakers. There’s a limit to how much meaning can be extracted from a textual representation, but I’m pretty sure when Miri says “Thanks a lot” it isn’t the simple expression of gratitude sig’Alda takes it for.
In which Tyl Von sig’Alda makes an approach.
sig’Alda is demonstrating a very closed-minded attitude here: instead of paying attention to new information and adjusting his theories and plans, he’s holding on to his theories and plans and taking in only what information fits what he already believes he knows. Some of it’s definitely indoctrination, like the way he shies away from the possibility that Val Con might be consciously and happily free of the Department’s influence, and some of it is… probably at least partly due to indoctrination, like the way he dismisses everything any Terran does as an irrelevant distraction. But I’m not sure that explains the way he seems to have accepted certain things as facts when they were only ever presented as plausible theories, like Miri’s supposed drug addiction.
One way and another, his inability or disinclination to accept new information is going to come back and bite him sooner or later, when reality fails to match the contents of his head. The question is how much damage he’s going to do before then, trying to impose the contents of his head on reality.
Vandar
Winterfair
In which the Snow Wind Trio makes its radio debut.
The performance of “Leaf Dance” is another of my favourite moments from the novel. I tend to assume that any attempt to put the Liaden Universe on the screen would inevitably disappoint, but that’s one scene that would be amazing if someone got it right.
Vandar
Springbreeze Farm
In which contacting a spaceship is beneficial only if one has plans to leave the planet.
Faced with the possibility of getting a lift off the planet, Miri and Val Con now need to decide if they want to try and make something of it.
Despite the attraction to Miri of a planet that’s like home except cleaner and with happy children, I think there’s really only one way the choice could have come out. Apart from Val Con, as Miri mentions, having things left undone in the wide universe, I don’t think they actually have the option of staying on Vandar the rest of their lives: with all the people looking for them, they’re going to be found sooner or later. The choice isn’t really “stay or go”, it’s “be found now, when we’re expecting it and have some measure of control over the circumstances, or be found later, perhaps unexpecting and unprepared”.
Liad
Trealla Fantrol
In which Rel Vad Yoltak encounters abnormal conditions.
Despite Nova’s worry, Anthora and Jeeves seem to be doing all right for themselves, and justifying the decision to leave someone to hold off invaders. Without active resistance, I wouldn’t put it past the Department to just break in and ransack the place.
Anthora’s polite semi-apology for giving advice to a member of another Clan has undercurrents; as social errors involving members of other Clans go, giving one advice is surely less serious than fronting up to one’s home and ordering one about. It is thus a bad sign, though by this point not a terribly surprising one, that Agent Yoltak fails to take the hint.