Tag Archives: Shelly van Whitkin

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 3

Shipyear 32
Tripday 151
First Shift
1.30 hours

In which we meet the second mate, who is a rounder.

A “rounder”, according to the dictionary I consulted, is a “person who makes the rounds of bars, saloons, and similar establishments; figuratively, a debaucher or roué”, which seems like a pretty apt description of Dagmar Collier. (Who, incidentally, also wears too many rings.)

Second Mate Collier adds sexual harrassment to the list of things Priscilla has to put up with on Daxflan. Not only is she not put off by the fact that her advances are unwelcome, that explicitly adds to her enjoyment. It’s worth noting that Collier is depicted as a sexual predator who happens to be of a particular orientation, with the presentation balanced by other characters later in the novel who share the orientation but not the unfriendliness or the disdain for consent. I can think of other works I’ve read which have lacked that diversity of representation, so it’s good to see here.

It’s three days since the previous chapter, and Priscilla’s off-shift has moved from Second Shift to First. If the ship day is a strict rotation of work-rest-work-rest, as implied by Shelly’s rant, that argues for an odd number of shifts in the day. On the other hand, maybe there are an even number of shifts per day and Priscilla had to work a double shift in there somewhere — perhaps while they were in dock at Alcyone, where they’d need the cargo master to remain available. (I dismiss out of hand the possibility that she might have been given a double rest period.) For what it’s worth, the single data point we have on shift numbers in Liaden trade ships, Jethri’s Elthoria, had four shifts per day.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 2

Shipyear 32
Tripday 148
Second Shift
10.30 hours

In which we meet Priscilla Mendoza again.

Priscilla, who we last saw lighting out for the spaceport on Sintia, has worked her way up over the subsequent decade to cargo master on a trade ship. She hopes to qualify as a pilot some day (and demonstrates reflexes suggesting she has the aptitude). There aren’t many opportunities for professional advancement, however, on Daxflan, where the crew are treated badly, the mates are crooks, the captain is under the Trader’s thumb, and the Trader is a self-important jerk.

Something I’ve been noticing on this re-read but not been paying systematic attention to is the use of hand ornamentation as an insight into a Liaden’s character. There are the obvious cases of the narration mentioning the light glinting off a delm’s ring in a scene where the delm is exerting authority or asserting status, but there are other examples, and even instances (Fen Ris, yesterday, being one) where the narration makes a point of mentioning that a person is wearing no rings at all. On the other hand, a Liaden who wears many rings is usually a person with pretensions above his circumstances, like Ran Eld in Scout’s Progress and Trader Olanek here.

The detail in this chapter that caught my eye on this re-read that hadn’t before is the mention that Daxflan has dispensed with the services of a Healer. It might just have been penny-pinching — or the Healer might, like Priscilla’s friend Shelly, have chosen not to stick around — but I find myself wondering whether the Healer was got rid of to protect Daxflan‘s secrets, since among those which will be revealed in chapters to come there is one that a competent Healer would be sure to spot. (I also find myself reflecting that the holder of that particular secret might, in the long run, have been better off letting the Healer find out and taking the consequences.)