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Carpe Diem – Chapter 68

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Vandar
Winterfair

In which Val Con meets Tyl Von sig’Alda, Clan Rugare.

Given that it’s been suggested that Cloud targets the user’s most traumatic memories, it’s interesting that its effect on Tyl Von sig’Alda seems to have been to make him forget basically everything about being an Agent of Change.

(Also interesting: that although he is confused when Val Con mentions his ship, he doesn’t hesitate when Val Con asks for his first aid kit. Presumably carrying one of those is a basic pilot thing that he was doing even before he fell into the hands of the Department.)

sig’Alda’s recollection of his occupation suggests he’s not a former Scout, unless he left the Scouts for some reason to become a pilot-for-hire. I was going to say that it seems unlikely a Scout would choose such a course, but then I remembered that we know of a Scout who did very nearly that, and choice didn’t come into it: Val Con’s own father was called home from the Scouts to serve the necessity of his Clan, and later became a courier pilot at least partly because it was the closest he could get, while still serving the necessity of his Clan, to being a Scout again. And it could also happen more directly, that a Scout might be called home to serve the Clan’s necessity by being a pilot-for-hire, if the Clan’s necessity were that all its children be supporting it with paid occupations. (I think I’ve just argued myself out of believing that we’ve learned anything definite about whether sig’Alda was a Scout.)

Carpe Diem – Chapter 66

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Vandar
Winterfair

In which Tyl Von sig’Alda is a man with a plan.

sig’Alda shows a blind spot again: even after he carefully notes the fact that Val Con is heading for Miri’s last known location, it doesn’t occur to him that Miri herself might be the objective. Granted, he doesn’t know that Val Con knows Miri’s location, but then again he doesn’t know he doesn’t, and given how many of his scenarios involve pre-arranged plots against the Department you’d think a simple pre-arranged rendezvous wouldn’t be difficult to consider. But no; sig’Alda can’t imagine Val Con arranging to meet up with Miri, at least not for her own sake, because he can’t imagine wanting to see Miri again.

The Department really does spend a lot of time considering scenarios in which people are plotting against them, it seems. An occupational hazard of spending all one’s time plotting against people, perhaps. It shows up again when sig’Alda, having concluded that Val Con and Miri were deliberately signalling to someone on the radio, decides it was most likely a pre-arranged signal to a co-conspirator. (It’s interesting that he doesn’t consider the possibility that they might have been signalling to him, although to be fair I suppose that would seem less likely after Val Con’s marked lack of enthusiasm when he answered the signal.)

Carpe Diem – Chapter 35

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Springbreeze Farm

In which there is war in Bentrill.

This is a chapter where I would probably have had plenty to say on a first reading, but on the re-read it’s mostly “Yes, that’s how I remember it going.”

Val Con’s reached back into his Agent of Change conditioning to gain an advantage in the battle (to ensure Miri’s safety, where he would not have taken such a risk on his own account), and there are already signs that there are going to be consequences.

I wonder when Val Con learned to recognise the Gyrfalks’ battle cry; as far as I recall, nobody had occasion to use it during the very brief period he and Miri were travelling with the Gyrfalks. Maybe Miri’s been using it while they’ve been sparring.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 20

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Vandar
Springbreeze Farm and Environs

In which Borril is not pretty.

The language lesson in this chapter is one of my favourite parts of the novel.

It is apparently just over a month since Val Con gave Miri the stick-knife in Econsey, which occurred a day or two before they left Lufkit on the 242nd day of the year, so this is somewhere in the vicinity of day 270 (and Edger’s interlude on Kago, instead of happening a week after they landed on this world, as the placement of the chapter suggests, happened a week before). That leaves, between their captivity with the Juntavas and their landfall on Zhena Trelu’s world, about two weeks for trying to get the derelict yacht working, Jump, and scouting from orbit. It didn’t feel like that long when it was happening, but I suppose it’s not impossible, though it is an awfully long time to be living on pretzel-bread, water, and salmon.

Miri, arranging the breakfast things, is described moving with surprising swiftness, an attribute which in this series is usually a sign of a pilot, or at least one with pilot potential. Miri isn’t a pilot, and has never mentioned having the potential or the interest, but given the life she’s led it’s not unlikely that the possibility has never occurred to her.

Agent of Change – Chapter 11

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In which Miri and Val Con come to the attention of the authorities.

Bringing Miri breakfast through a locked door, disconcerting as it understandably is for her, is I think basically a friendly gesture on Val Con’s part, and not just for the breakfast itself. The implicit message, that a locked door isn’t enough to keep him out, might be read as threatening, but he doesn’t need or want to threaten her at this point; if he meant her harm, he’d have done better to let her going on thinking that a locked door would keep her safe right up until it was time to prove her definitively wrong. As it is, it’s less a threat than a warning: he’s showing her what he can do, even though it means giving up a tactical advantage, because it’s something she needs to understand if they’re going to work together.

The mention of the Belansiums on Justin Hostro’s walls clears up a small mystery. The painter Belansium is featured in the short story “Phoenix”, set about a century before this; by the time I first read that story, I’d forgotten about the paintings in this chapter, so I’ve been wondering on and off since then how Bel first came to the attention of the authors. Now I know.

(Incidentally, it’s a nice bit of foreshadowing that Miri compares Justin Hostro’s interior decoration to Sire Baldwin’s.)

Agent of Change – Chapter 7

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In which preparations are made for dinner.

I went back and checked “To Cut an Edge” again, and it says that the stick-knife is a standard part of a Scout’s kit. That surprised me a bit; I’d have said it seemed more like a spy’s weapon than a Scout’s. On reflection, though, Scouts by the nature of their profession spend a lot of time in uncertain situations, and this can’t be the first time in Val Con’s career where it was wise to be armed without seeming to be.

I’m not sure why Selector’s response to Edger about the deal with Justin Hostro is so grumpy. Annoyed at how much Edger is talking up the deal, maybe. Or just generally ill-disposed to anything involving the Cavern of Flawed Knives. Any thoughts?

Agent of Change – Chapter 6

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In which Miri and Val Con discuss family history.

One of the interesting things about Miri’s family tree is that, if Val Con’s calculation of the year named Amrasam is accurate, Miri’s grandmother was born within a year of Val Con’s father. Daav yos’Phelium waited until relatively late in life to marry and have a family, but Miri Tiazan, as we will be told later, had her daughter young, and her daughter seemingly did the same.

It may be that, in this, Daav is the odd one out. There’s a cultural imperative for every Liaden to have at least one descendant, and many Liadens who appear in the series are shown to have opted to do it early to get it out of the way. What the cultural imperative is on Surebleak I don’t know for sure, but a ghetto world with a short life expectancy would probably also tend toward young parenthood. Miri Tiazan didn’t live to see the age at which Daav yos’Phelium started seriously considering his posterity.

To Cut an Edge

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In which the Edger does something hasty.

Back to Korval, but not to Liad, for Val Con is outworld on his preliminary Scout exam.

This is another story where I feel like I’d probably have more to say if I were reading it for the first time.

I like all the characters in this; they’re strongly drawn and make the most of the limited screen time they get. (An un-looked-for advantage of e-readers is that I no longer have to stop and ask myself “Can I say ‘screen time’ when it’s on paper instead of a screen?”) Edger’s first scene also does some good compact work at showing the Turtles’ society and their idea of doing things in a timely manner.

It’s probably just a coincidence, but I notice that in this stretch of stories which introduce (or re-introduce as adults) the main players of the new generation, Pat Rin’s story is next to Natesa’s and Val Con’s is next to Miri’s. (But no Shan story to go next to Priscilla’s, apparently. Yet.)

Tomorrow: “Shadow Partner”