Spiral Dance
Twilight Interval
In which Jela ponders human nature.
A short and thoughtful chapter, to which I don’t think I have anything to add.
I’m curious about this “long twilight”, though. Apparently not all interstellar journeys are over in twelve seconds. But why? Is it just that things are that much farther apart out on the Rim and beyond?
Spiral Dance
Ardega
In which the Enemy makes an example.
More about the aelantaza, and about Dulsey’s background, and Cantra’s. That’s an interesting insight about why Cantra’s so cantankerous.
Cantra’s been thinking to herself lately that it’s not safe to find Jela as attractive as she does, and now it appears that Jela has been thinking to himself similar things about Cantra. It’s pretty clear where that’s headed, even if I didn’t already know.
On port
Barbit
In which Jela and Cantra go for a quiet drink.
This is one of my favourite chapters in the Crystal Duology. Possibly it’s because it’s a very Korval sort of scene in a duology that mostly sets a different tone than the Korval novels. I could see Val Con and Miri, for instance, getting into a situation similar to this one.
Though I realised on this re-read that it’s not just the Korval novels it reminds me of:
As Lobsang followed the ambling Lu-Tze he heard the dojo master, who like all teachers never missed an opportunity to drive home a lesson, say: ‘Dojo! What is Rule One?’
Even the cowering challenger mumbled along to the chorus:
‘Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!’
Spiral Dancer
In Transit
In which a course is charted.
I think this is the first time Cantra’s surname has been mentioned. Jela has doubts about its authenticity, seeing as “Phelium” bore an interesting similarity to the Rim-cant word for “pilot”. And “yos'” was the Inworld’s prefix for denoting a courier or delivery person, which is interesting, and since I first read this book I’ve occasionally idled time away trying to guess what other Liaden prefixes might have denoted in the Inworlds. dea’ might have signified a person who minds the business of another, given the examples of dea’Gauss, whose family business is handling the financial and legal affairs of other families, and dea’Judan, whose family business is storekeeping (but not owning the stores they keep). And I have a feeling, without having done a deliberate survey, that pel’ has a tendency to appear in the names of butlers and other such domestic servants.
We also get our first mention of the Uncle, and straight out of the gate the doubt about whether he’s (a) still around and (b) still the same man who used to be the Uncle in the old days, which is going to become something of a recurring motif.
Spiral Dance
Taliofi
In which several people are not what they appear to be.
There are, of course, no Liadens in this setting, but there are people who possess attributes that will come to be considered Liaden. A few chapters ago, it was mentioned in passing that a golden-tan skin tone is a high class marker, and here we learn likewise about the very Liaden-like manners of a person with that skin tone. The word used is “Inside”, which I suspect refers to the inner reaches of the galaxy, placing high society socially and geographically at the opposite pole from the Rim.
And Rint dea’Sord, the first person we’ve yet encountered who combines a Liaden-like skin tone with Liaden-like manners and a Liaden-like name, is a fraud. The skin tone is make-up, the manners are self-taught and wouldn’t stand up in the actual Inside, his pretty Inside accent disappears in emotional extremity, and all things considered I wouldn’t lay money on the name being authentic either. He’s putting on high-society manners for the advantage it gives him against his fellow low-lifes.
Meanwhile Cantra, it seems, is doing the inverse. She was brought up with high-class manners, which she doesn’t use, preferring to present herself as a Rimmer like Garen. In retrospect, there were several moments foreshadowing this, including the moment a few chapters ago where Dulsey bows to her and she almost replies with the corresponding bow instead of a Rimmer’s nod, and the way her reminisces of Garen have always mentioned Rimmers in a way that leaves it ambiguous about whether she counts herself as one. And the fact that she was the subject of the previous mention of golden-tan skin tone as a high class marker.
Also, she’s an aelantaza — whatever that is, the few details we’ve got so far sound worrying — and her “first aid kit” is, judging by Jela’s reaction, sheriekas tech.