Jelaza Kazone
In which Emissary Twelve has thoughts about change.
There’s a lot of thinking about the future in this chapter: about what they will do if Boss Surebleak wins, and, perhaps more importantly, what kind of future they will shape if Boss Surebleak doesn’t win.
That makes, I believe two appointments the portmaster has tomorrow, beginning two hours apart. I wonder if they will collide in some fashion.
Surebleak Port
Portmaster’s Office
In which Boss Surebleak makes the next move.
I have reservations about this, but Portmaster Liu and Survey Leader Kasveini have already said them for me.
I still want to know, if nobody knows who Boss Surebleak is, how were the requests for comment for the Voting Editions addressed?
Jelaza Kazone
In which Korval catches up on the morning news.
There seems to me to be a lot of book left for where we’re at.
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Surebleak Port
Office of the Road Boss
In which people want to talk about voting.
I wonder if the editor of the newspaper is the same printer on Conrad’s turf who started up the first newssheet after his arrival. If so, she seems to have taken to it pretty well.
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Surebleak Port
Portmaster’s Office
In which Miri Robertson calls on the Portmaster.
So, what does it portend that Miri visits in the melant’i of plain “Miri Robertson”? Not entirely that she’s calling as an individual, because when it comes down to it she’s still there to speak for Korval, but perhaps that she’s doing so as an ordinary child of Korval and not as a high Korval official. And perhaps also to underline, a little bit, that she’s also a child of Surebleak and wants what’s good for the planet as well as what’s good for her family.
Also, I’m starting to wonder how it came about that some of the devices decided their orders were irregular. It could just be general cussedness, but I wonder if some of them have been talking to Sye Mon.
Surebleak Port
Portmaster’s Office
In which Team Leader Kasveini has her limits.
The idea that social change on Surebleak works from the bottom up, by improving the lives of the people at the bottom of the heap, was a major theme of Dragon in Exile. Part of it was that, as seen again in the Road Boss’s meeting here, it’s harder for the Old Ways to come back if everyone knows they’re better off under the new ways.
Dragon in Exile also saw the origin of Kareen and Kamele’s project collating the historical documents of Surebleak.
Surebleak Port
Office of the Road Boss
In which chaos occurs on a strict schedule.
The obvious assumption is that the Department of the Interior is behind this somehow. But is it intended to achieve something in itself, or is it a distraction from something else?
Surebleak Port
Office of the Road Boss
In which people want to talk about Clutch Turtles.
On one level, saying they’ll need a week or two to get an answer out of the emissary is stalling for time, but I’m not sure that on another level Miri doesn’t actually mean it. It is true that the emissary does talk faster than some Turtles, but she’s been here a day and still they’ve only got a very small part of the answer, not nearly enough to be answering questions like “How long is the emissary staying?” and “Can we expect any more of them?”
Surebleak Port
Office of the Road Boss
In which Delm Korval has visitors.
Well, there’s an answer to my question about how things would have gone if Emissary Twelve had done this on Liad, anyway.
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Surebleak Orbital Influence Zone
In which Bechimo’s crew prepare to report.
The Theo/Bechimo part of the series isn’t as close to my heart as the Miri/Val Con part, and part of why is scenes like this, where the characters are talking over technical problems that mean something to them but don’t mean much to me. Miri and Val Con spend a fair amount of talking about problems that need solving, too, but their problems are usually about people, which I find inherently more interesting.