Tag Archives: Ramal Sector

Agent of Change – Chapter 26 & Epilogue

2 Replies

In which the Yxtrang lose their prey and much else besides.

I’m not sure why Commander Khaliiz punishes his underlings for failing to ensure that the ship was empty after he’s accused Val Con of stealing their prize, which suggests that he’s aware of the possibility that Val Con and Miri arrived after the ship was emptied. Maybe he’s just making sure to cover all the bases, but it seems to me that an organization that can get away with harshly punishing people just in case they might have done something wrong is an organization that’s seriously flawed.

One thousandth of a light second, the safe radius for going into Jump, is approximately the distance between New York and Baltimore.

Agent of Change – Chapter 25

3 Replies

In which Val Con declines to surrender to the Yxtrang.

I’m not sure how to picture the spin that Val Con applies to the yacht. Spinning around a central axis, perpendicular to the motion of the yacht? Tumbling end over end? Neither of those quite match all the other things that are going on at the same time.

A belated observation: when the Yxtrang first attacked the yacht, their scans reported three people on board, but Miri and Val Con only found one body. If Val Con’s right about the dead guy being a smuggler, it’s most likely that the other two were colleagues, rather than any of the family members he was carrying around photos of; and the fact that he was carrying around photos of his family adds to the likelihood that they were off somewhere far away. At least, this is what I am telling myself; given some of the threats the Yxtrang Commander utters in this chapter, I don’t like to consider the possibility that their previous victims included women and children.

We’re back in the land of short chapters which indicate increased pace if one reads them all at once but drag things out when one reads one chapter per day.

…which is why, presumably, my notes indicate that tomorrow I will be covering both Chapter Twenty-Six and the Epilogue in a single entry.

(And then we will be going straight on to the second chapter of Carpe Diem, since the first chapter is basically a repeat of this one, slightly reworded, with a few bits abridged and a couple of additions that don’t need an entire entry to cover. The more significant one is the addition of a dateline establishing that this scene takes in “Second Quadrant: Ramal Sector”.)

Agent of Change – Chapter 24

Leave a Reply

In which the Juntavas let Miri and Val Con go.

A nicely unobtrusive example of virtue being its own reward: if Miri hadn’t thought about notifying the dead stranger’s family, she wouldn’t have found the coord page before it was spaced, and they’d have been in a heap of trouble.

Well. Not that they’re not in a heap of trouble as it is, with an Yxtrang ship bearing down on them, but you know what I mean.

Agent of Change – Chapter 23

1 Reply

In which Hostro’s message catches up with the Juntavas.

I had forgotten about Val Con’s near-death experience. Given some of the weird psychic stuff that happens elsewhere in the series, it might have some deeper significance that isn’t immediately obvious, but if it does I don’t know what it is.

Agent of Change – Chapter 22

1 Reply

In which the Juntavas catch up with Miri.

There’s something tricksy going on with the timing in this chapter: the scene with Hostro and Edger is clearly Edger returning after one hour to hear Hostro’s decision, as promised two chapters ago — even though several days have passed for Miri and Val Con in those two chapters. Clearly there’s been a bit of stretch-and-squash going on in the relative placement of the scenes that don’t involve Miri and Val Con.

I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that the period of time Terrans and the Clutch have been dealing together is roughly the same as Edger’s age.

Up to now, when considering Miri and Val Con’s potential (and now newly formalized) partnership, the emphasis has mainly been on Miri’s preference for playing single’s odds and consequently not being sure what she’d do with a partner — but it should be noted that Val Con, whatever he might have done when he was a Scout, has spent the last few years playing his own version of single’s odds, and his response to the ship being boarded suggests that he could do with brushing up on the finer points of having a partner himself. Trying to take sole responsibility for one’s partner’s safety is not how it’s supposed to work, even when it doesn’t result in the two of you being separated and then individually pinned down and captured.

Agent of Change – Chapter 21

1 Reply

In which Miri and Val Con discuss marriage.

I raise my eyebrow at Val Con’s assertion that who he marries is his choice and not the choice of the Clan. From what we’ve seen in the prequels, I think the Clan would have something to say about that, particularly since what he’s proposing is a lifemating that would deprive the Clan of any possible future use it might get from his marriage prospects. As Delm, of course, he would have the ultimate say. But he’s not Delm yet — and if he holds to the intention he goes on to suggest, to steer clear of Liad and Korval in future, he’s never going to be. (Then again, if he steers clear of Liad and Korval in future, he’ll be depriving the Clan of the use of his marriage prospects whether he marries Miri or not.)

It’s a sign of the new balance Val Con has worked out for himself that he’s comfortable again identifying himself as “Scout Commander”. He’s probably doing it at least partly to reassure whoever might be on the distressed ship, but I don’t think that would be sufficient impetus for him to do it if he were still in the spy-not-a-Scout headspace he was in before.

Agent of Change – Chapter 18

1 Reply

In which several people are given things to think on.

Miri and Val Con are clear of Lufkit, but they’re not clear of trouble yet. Justin Hostro is sending people after them —

— I find myself wondering how he was able to discover their destination, when so far the name of Volmer has been spoken only in the hearing of Turtles. Perhaps Watcher mentioned it while he was in Xavier Ing’s custody, though that seems unlikely; a more plausible possibility is that the process of setting the ship for the journey included filing a destination with local traffic control —

— and near the end of the chapter we’re introduced to a new group of people, who act as a reminder that there are other dangers in the wide universe, which Miri and Val Con might now be heading toward.