Tag Archives: Solcintra Port

Skyblaze

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In which Vertu dea’San decides that somebody ought to do something.

This story is, among other things, a valuable reminder that while Korval were happy enough to be thrown off Liad for their part in the Battle of Solcintra, there are others served similarly for whom it might not be so pleasant.

Reading a story featuring “galan’ranubiet” (Treasure of the House) and “galandaria” (compatriot), I find myself wondering after the meaning of “yos’Galan”.

I said a few days ago I was going to have something more to say about taxis. The bulk of this story takes place at a time when there’s only one licensed taxi driver in Surebleak Port City, and even at the end of the story the number has only grown to three, with some consideration being given to a fourth. That sets it before the climactic sequence of Necessity’s Child, which contains at least three active taxis and likely more.

(So why have I scheduled it after? We’ll come back to that.)

Now let us consider the other major indicator of when it’s set: the passing of the seasons. The main section of the story takes place in local winter, at some point after Korval came to settle on Surebleak, with the last section taking place early in the following spring. That’s straightforward enough.

Now we have two choices:

Ghost Ship tells us that Korval settled on Surebleak before winter turned to spring, that Theo’s visit occurred during late spring (this point is made on multiple occasions), and that the event which kicks off the plot of Necessity’s Child occurred a few weeks before the onset of summer. This seems to fit: Vertu arrives during Korval’s first winter, joins Jemie in the taxi business, and they spend the spring building up the business to a point that will account for the flock of taxis bringing people to the new school when it opens in early summer. The bit near the end of this story, with Vertu and Jemie in early spring considering diversifying into the ground-courier business, meshes nicely with Jemie’s cameo in Ghost Ship, in late spring, delivering a courier message.

However. Necessity’s Child itself claims to begin in late winter, which would put the school opening in early spring, and allow little if any time for the building of the taxi fleet.

After due consideration, I have decided I prefer the timeline suggested by Ghost Ship, and not just because it’s more insistent about it. (Ghost Ship, as I said, mentions the season repeatedly, while the beginning of Necessity’s Child does so only once – and, for that matter, the school opening scene has a mention of how warm the day is, which might be taken to mean that even the end of Necessity’s Child disagrees with the beginning about what time of year it is.)

There are still a couple of more short stories and a novel set on Surebleak which I haven’t read yet because they all came out after I began the re-read; I’ll be interested to see when they claim to be set.

(When I was scheduling the re-read, the one detail I remembered from all this confusion was that Ghost Ship was set in spring, but I forgot that it said Korval had been there since winter, so I thought Vertu’s first winter on Surebleak must be after both Ghost Ship and Necessity’s Child, and scheduled “Skyblaze” accordingly. If I were doing it now, I would definitely put “Skyblaze” before Necessity’s Child.)

Tomorrow: “Roving Gambler”, one of those stories set on Surebleak that I haven’t read yet.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 27

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which preparations are made for dinner.

The scene where Val Con drives Theo to Jelaza Kazone echoes scenes from earlier books, among them Er Thom driving Anne and Daav driving Aelliana. The similarities, of course, highlight the differences – such as the considerably less accommodating road.

(I’m not entirely sure about the idea of building a bridge over the worst stretch of road to save the Bosses risking their cars on it: how if someone were to destroy the bridge and trap everyone at the wrong end of the Road? But then Miri does say someone will be keeping an eye on the bridge; I suppose somebody would be keeping an eye on that stretch of road in any case.)

I’m not sure Val Con isn’t sending Theo into battle insufficiently armed, by telling her the dress code is “informal” and not telling her what that really means. On the other hand, given that there’s not enough space left in the schedule to dig stuff out of house stores, and that therefore Theo is going to have to go in what she’s got anyhow, maybe telling her would only give her an extra half hour of worrying about not measuring up, with nothing useful to be done about it.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 14

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Arin’s Toss
In Transit

In which the Uncle has a job for Theo and the Colonel has a job for Clarence.

I’m still suspicious about what the Uncle is up to. Giving Theo a course change while she’s en route means that anybody who might have been paying attention to the flight plan she filed won’t know about her side trip, and might suggest that he has reason to suspect that somebody is paying such attention. The amendment won’t do anything to help Theo evade pursuit, though, since it still ends with her arriving at Ploster in the time frame that the Department is expecting her to arrive. More likely is that the Uncle is only interested in helping himself, and hiding his interest in whatever might be waiting at Tokeo.

We were told in the first chapter of this book how long Bechimo has been on the lam, so the mention of the tales being “older than the Plan” might give us a limit on how old the Department is. Or it might just mean that there have always been ghost ship tales, and in Bechimo‘s case they just happen to be true. In any case, it’s not much of a limit, since it’s far enough back to comfortably include every mention in the prequels of what might be the Department. (Although, since we’re doing comparisons, it still makes Bechimo a couple of centuries younger than Jeeves, and a couple more centuries younger than Edger.)

I’m a mite puzzled by Max, the tug pilot with the colourful hair. Pat Rin’s round-up of pilots in I Dare included Surebleak Port’s tug pilot with colourful hair, but her name was Dostie Welsin.

Moon on the Hills

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Surebleak

In which Korval acquires a new neighbour.

It’s an evocative name, “World’s End”. There’s the obvious sense in which the place is named, referring to a physical boundary, a place where the world comes to an end, but there are other things it could mean, such as a temporal boundary, a time when a world comes to an end. Sometimes a person’s world can come to an end even though the planet continues untouched. Yulie’s world might have ended when he lost the last of his kin. It might have ended today, if Boss Conrad had been someone other than the person he is.

(And isn’t it interesting how, when he’s talking to Yulie, he’s mostly Pat Rin but sometimes he’s Boss Conrad for a moment or two?)

It’s also interesting to speculate how things might have gone differently if Yulie’s brother hadn’t got himself killed before Boss Conrad showed up, and had been the one handling the negotiation for road access.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 5

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Arin’s Toss
Solcintra Port
Liad

In which Theo’s father tells her the truth.

Theo’s conversation with her father is one of those things that’s obviously significant but I don’t know how to talk about. (I do wonder if it helps Theo to learn that Val Con’s mother was a respected scholar. It seems like it might make the whole preposterous situation feel slightly more familiar.)

Either Theo’s taxi ride from the Port or her nap, or both, must have consumed a considerable amount of time, since it is now the day set for Korval’s departure and Theo left the Port at dawn the previous day. (Local calendar, explicitly stated, so it’s not one of those things where the Standard Day changes halfway through the local day.) No, excuse me: Theo went to call a taxi at dawn; maybe the city’s in such a commotion at the moment that it took most of the day to turn up.

The detail about Trealla Fantrol is interesting; they couldn’t take it with them, but they weren’t going to let it fall into anyone else’s hands. In which light, I wonder what it says that they didn’t mind letting Liad keep the formal gardens.

Tomorrow: “Moon on the Hills”, then back to Chapter 6.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 3

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Jelaza Kazone
Liad

In which Delm Korval considers Theo’s problem.

Not sure what to make of Theo thinking that Val Con looks familiar for some reason other than resembling their father. She hasn’t met any of the other relatives yet, and I’m pretty sure she’s never seen his mother — or has she? They talked about the Caylon at the Academy, but I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned them having pictures of her. (And of course if that’s it Theo wouldn’t be able to place the resemblance, because nobody’s mentioned to her who Val Con’s mother is.)

As for her assessment of Val Con as biddable and lacking in spark, it’s a choice between politely suppressed laughter and a wide-eyed Bugs Bunny “She don’t know him very well, do she?”

Until Val Con mentioned it, I don’t think I’d thought about the fact that Korval doesn’t just have its house and Tree to get off-planet, but all of the many ships it’s collected over the years (those that aren’t elsewhere already). I suppose it will have to allow its several shipyards to be seized – unless they’ve already been sold off or otherwise passed into other hands – but Korval never leaves a ship behind.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 2

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Jelaza Kazone
Liad

In which Theo is introduced to her father’s family, and vice versa.

It is a tricky situation that Daav’s got himself in, regarding explaining himself to Kamele. The basic principle that he had kin in need of assistance is straightforward enough, but necessarily leads to questions like “Who are these kin?” and “Why have you never mentioned them before?” and, sooner or later, “But if your name is actually Daav yos’Phelium…”

Also, while I think Kamele would take the news that her onagrata had been married before at least as clear-headedly as Theo, things might get very awkward if she asked how the marriage had ended and where Aelliana is now and Daav felt obliged to answer honestly.

It’s interesting to compare Theo’s situation to Shan’s when the clan first became aware of him. Shan was rapidly enfolded in the clan, but that was because his mother had already declared him to be part of the clan by naming him yos’Galan; everything that followed was just sorting out the details. Theo is a Waitley, born under an arrangement that’s comparable in the relevant areas to a Liaden contract marriage with the offspring going to the mother’s clan, and her father has been making a point of not claiming any connection to Korval for himself let alone for her. It’s possible she could join Clan Korval at some future point, if it seemed like a good idea for all concerned (a collection of people including not only herself, her father and Delm Korval, but also her mother – which would entail the aftorementioned tricky explanations), but it’s not going to happen automatically just because her father has returned to his clan.

I like the detail that Merlin, who is usually referred to with male pronouns by those who know him best, gets female pronouns in the scene told from Theo’s viewpoint, because Theo’s from Delgado where female is the default gender.

I Dare – Chapter 57

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Day 59
Standard Year 1393

Solcintra
Liad

In which the Council of Clans throws Korval into the briar patch.

The Delm Hedrede who delivers the Council’s judgment here is not the same Delm Hedrede who clashed with Korval thirty years ago in Scout’s Progress – different pronouns – but it does make me wonder if Hedrede has a personal investment in Korval getting booted off the planet.

There’s a neat bit of narrative sleight of hand with the problem of what to do with the dies: the problem is carefully laid out, then just as Val Con is about to suggest a solution, the conversation is interrupted. The reader is left to assume that a solution is found without the authors having to actually come up with one.

Tomorrow and tomorrow: Revisiting old friends and seeing how they’re affected by recent events, in “Misfits” and then the remainder of Saltation.

I Dare – Chapter 55

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Solcintra
Liad

In which the Captain acts for the safety of the passengers.

The mode of Ultimate Authority, which is referred to twice in this chapter, has, perhaps unsurprisingly, not come up much before: three times in the series up to this point. Priscilla adopts it briefly when putting Sav Rid Olanek in his place at the end of Conflict of Honors; Commander of Agents is said in Carpe Diem to use it when dealing with his underlings; and Val Con, greeting the Tree in Plan B, places the Tree in the position of ultimate authority.

The fact that it’s used twice in this chapter, and by whom, is the central conflict in a nutshell: the first is Commander of Agents again, and the second is Miri when she takes on the melant’i of Liad’s Captain. And I think it says something that, whereas Miri adopts the mode temporarily and in a situation where she is in fact the duly-appointed ultimate authority until the emergency is resolved, the Commander is not only self-appointed but apparently expects to be regarded as the ultimate authority all the time.

There’s a leap near the end of the chapter that I’ve never been able to follow. After the doomsday weapons are activated, ter’Fendil says he can deactivate them if Val Con gives him the control device, and Val Con does. Then it cuts to another scene, and when it cuts back everybody’s running for their lives and talking about the urgent need to do something before the weapons break out and start killing everybody. Is there something missing, or is it just me missing something?

I Dare – Chapter 54

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Day 54
Standard Year 1393

Solcintra
Liad

In which the counter-attack on the Department begins.

Dramatic revelation: Commander of Agents has a name! Presumably it was Val Con who provided that detail; I wonder if that means he had a habit of sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted even as a loyal Agent of the Department, because somehow I can’t imagine the Commander making a habit of introducing himself to his subordinates.

And now that name has been broadcast over Solcintra on an open wavelength, along with the information that his Department exists and claims to speak for Liad. Likely the attitude that this is an absurdity produced by an addled Terran will be a common one, but even so it’s a crack in the Department’s veil of secrecy. And it serves notice to the Department, because they’ll know who must have put Higdon’s Howlers up to this. (Even more so, if I’m right about the Commander’s name being a secret kept even from his own agents.)

Once again, the day matches the chapter number. I don’t expect that to continue any further, though; things have started moving fast, and I doubt events are going to wait a whole day to find out what happens next.