In which there are many meetings.
Many meetings, and more reintroductions, and an innocent request concerning grapes that may or may not turn into something larger.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 1 part II
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Tag Archives: Sambra Reallen
Dragon in Exile – Chapter 25
Boss Conrad’s House
Blair Road
In which the Juntavas make Korval an offer he can refuse.
I’m not sure I understand the motivation behind the Juntavas’ offer to bring Korval into the family. If even an ordinary alliance would be risky, why go so much further? The only thing I can think of is that someone hopes to be able to envelop and gain control of Korval, in which case it’s only polite of Val Con to have given warning. Korval doesn’t really do “enveloped and controlled”.
I’m impressed by the Juntavas’ information-gathering if they’ve learned that Aelliana is still around. Maybe it’s explained by the fact that they’ve obtained detailed information about Daav’s visit to Nev’lorn, since Daav did mention to a few people then that Aelliana was with him. Perhaps more impressive is that the High Judge seems pretty casual about it, Aelliana being still around so long after she was declared to be really most sincerely dead. Could be that this time it’s a case of not having learned everything; if he doesn’t know how definitely dead Aelliana was, he might fall back on assuming reports of her death had been exaggerated, which I expect is something a High Judge of the Juntavas would be familiar with.
Plan B – Chapter 9
Shaltren
Juntavas Headquarters
In which Edger and Sheather decide to search elsewhere.
Edger and Sheather have apparently been sitting around on Shaltren for the last few months, waiting for any response to the Juntavas danger-tree broadcast. Maybe that doesn’t seem like such a long time to a Turtle, though it’s long enough that even they are getting a bit impatient. I bet it seemed much longer to the Juntavas.
Breath’s Duty
Delgado
Leafydale Place
Standard Year 1393
In which Scout Reserve Captain Daav yos’Phelium returns a favour.
Speaking of first published appearances, this is Kamele’s, brief as it is, and it gave me entirely the wrong impression of her until Fledgling came out. I blame the translators’ decision to use “mistress” as a substitute for whatever word they use on Delgado, because while it has the advantage of bypassing a lengthy explanation it fails to capture the actual spirit of Kamele’s relationship with Jen Sar. On the other hand, I admit there were also some failings of comprehension on my part, regarding (a) the actual likelihood of Daav getting in the kind of relationship that “mistress” implies, and (b) the fact, which is mentioned right there in the story, that they’ve been together long enough for her daughter to be grown up.
This may also be, even more briefly, the first published mention of timonioum.
One of the purposes of this re-read was to see what new associations would come out of the stories by reading them in a different configuration: what would come out of a story by reading it near another story I maybe hadn’t read it near before? In this case, a new thing that struck me was the first dissonant detail: after a couple of pages of Jen Sar Kiladi getting ready for a fishing trip, just as he always does, he pauses to run through the Rainbow pattern. Reading the story so soon after Carpe Diem, with everything it has to say about the Rainbow and about the Rainbow being a Scout thing, that really jumped out at me as a sign that Professor Kiladi isn’t the groundhugging academic he appears. It says, if one didn’t already know, a great deal about his background in a very few words.
Another association that I don’t think I picked up before this re-read is that Acting Scout Commander sig’Radia has the same surname as Senior Scout Cho sig’Radia, the friend and mentor of Daav’s daughter. Probably a relative, not the same person; “Phoenix” has established that sig’Radia has a history of producing Scouts, and this story says straight up that Daav doesn’t know her. (I wonder, though: I don’t think Kiladi ever actually met Cho sig’Radia other than through written correspondence, and if he did notice the connection Daav wouldn’t make anything of it while he’s keeping the Kiladi connection quiet; conversely, of course, Cho sig’Radia knows Theo’s father only as Kiladi and has no reason to suspect he’s Daav. And one who was a Senior Scout a few years ago might have progressed far enough to become Acting Scout Commander now — especially since the “Acting” suggests that the Department’s recent actions have resulted in some rapid movement in the line of succession.)
I’m pretty sure I got the significance of the Richard A. Davis Portmaster Aid Foundation first time, though.
I seem to recall there being something I wanted to say about the bit where L’il Orbit casts shade on Kiladi’s piloting skills, but the only thing that’s coming to mind now is that it was never Kiladi, in the old days, who was called “schoolteacher”. And that there’s a bit of an irony in Daav yos’Phelium being named as a reliable pilot considering what happened the last time he was seen piloting a spaceship.
Quiet Knives
In which Captain Rolanni goes to Shaltren sooner than expected.
This is an important story for the Juntavas, laying the groundwork for them to be something a bit more nuanced than The Space Mafia.
The pacing of this story didn’t quite work for me the first time I read it, with all the build-up to Kore’s escape attempt/Rolanni’s rescue attempt, and then it suddenly didn’t matter because Chairman Trogar meets his fate in an unrelated Act of Turtle. (And I got the feeling that the role of the Turtles isn’t sufficiently set up for someone who hasn’t read Carpe Diem first — though I’m in no position to say for sure, since I did read Carpe Diem first.) On this re-read, I got a better feeling of how the two things aren’t entirely unrelated; for one thing, if Sambra Reallen hadn’t called the department heads to a meeting as a distraction from Rolanni’s rescue attempt, they wouldn’t have been on hand to witness the Chairman’s downfall, and Reallen wouldn’t have been there to take hold of the situation before it got out of hand.
(Incidentally, from the mentions of them in this story, the department heads seem to be functionally just such a council of elders as Chairman Trogar boasted to Edger did not exist and had no power over him.)
Also, I’m thinking now, Rolanni’s attempt to rescue Kore is a bit like like Marguerite’s attempt to rescue her husband in The Scarlet Pimpernel, in that whether she will succeed in rescuing him is not the big question of the story; the big question was already answered when she decided she had to make the attempt.
It struck me on this re-read that “Kore” is also the name of a figure in Greek mythology, but I think that’s probably just a coincidence, notwithstanding that this Kore also has what might be understood as a descent into the underworld.
Another more useful thing that struck me on this re-read is that Rolanni’s personal and professional history places her as part of whatever the modern equivalent is of the trading family network that Jethri’s family was part of back in Balance of Trade.
Something I noticed the first time and again on this re-read is that we get very little detail about Kore’s employer, the High Judge, not even a name; I suspect the authors were leaving room to fill in details if he showed up in another story later. The first time I read this story, I wondered if he might be Clarence O’Berin, but that was mainly because I wanted more stories about Clarence; what little we get about the High Judge’s personality doesn’t really fit. It’s definitely not Clarence, anyhow; “Shadow Partner” has him still holding down the position on Liad many years after the High Judge started on the career path that led to him being the High Judge.
Tomorrow: Plan B
Carpe Diem – Chapter 34
Shaltren
Cessilee
In which Grom Trogar demonstrates the extent of his power.
It is not that Grom Trogar rules unchallenged, but that he has confidence that he can overcome whatever challenges are presented to him. This confidence is presumably based in past experience (I expect gaining and retaining the highest position in the Juntavas would have involved many challenges), but it seems to have led to him becoming incautious.
And so he puts himself in a position where his limits are discovered — very publicly, in front of delegates, security guards, unit managers, and all. None of whom, I notice, seem to be at all eager to avenge his death. Somebody who approaches challenges the way he does probably wasn’t winning any popularity contests; there are likely to be people in the crowd who are glad to see him go. The others might not be confident that they can take the Turtles even through superior numbers — or, if they think they have a chance there, perhaps they’ve asked themselves a question that doesn’t seem to have even occurred to Grom Trogar: If we do kill these two, who’s going to come and ask what happened to them?
That’s a beautiful detail about Edger and Sheather taking the time to ensure nobody might injure themselves by tripping over the lump of wall they removed.