In which Fer Gun thinks before he signs.
I think this is the most detailed explanation we’ve had of how there came to be so few people in Korval.
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Due Diligence – Chapter 7
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Tag Archives: the Contract is still in force
Due Diligence – Chapter 4
In which Fer Gun pen’Uldra gets married.
And so here is the context for the things that had puzzled me about Chi’s behaviour.
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Dragon in Exile – Chapter 13
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which everybody’s going to town.
The island Shan is interested in is presumably an outcome of his search for a site for the new yos’Galan house, so this chapter has references to both him and Kareen looking for new housing situations. There’s room for them at Jelaza Kazone, and they’d be safe there, but “safe and well provided for” has never been the overriding priority of the children of Korval.
I have sympathy for Kamele’s temptation to call it quits rather than face further uncertainty with no assurance that it won’t turn out to be quits anyway. I’ve had situations where I’ve felt similarly, though obviously none quite like this.
I still have a bad feeling about this upcoming meeting of the Bosses. Hearing that the delm will be there as well as Boss Conrad – in fact, with Kareen and Kamele’s excursion pretty much the entire household is going to be in town today – this is not making me any less concerned about the possibility that there will be Drama.
Code of Honor
In which Tommy Lee goes home.
It can be tricky placing a story in chronological order without reading it first, as we’ve seen already in this project, but I think I did all right with this one. It’s definitely set somewhere during Ghost Ship; a bit further on than where I’ve put it, I suspect, but we were already stopping here to read two other short stories, so doing “Code of Honor” as well means that after this we can finish off Ghost Ship without any further interruptions.
Putting it next to “Kin Ties” also produces a nice bit of synchronicity, since this story, too, turns out to be concerned with the question of bad delms and where duty lies for those burdened with them.
I have my doubts that it’s within any clan’s reach to take Korval’s proverbially unique place aside-but-not-among the Fifty High Houses; surely the fact that Korval is in a class by itself is the very point of the proverb. (For that matter, I would think that no clan would want that place, if they’d really thought about what it meant to be aside but not among the High Houses.) But I suppose that when ambition talks there’s always somebody willing to listen.
I appreciate the detail that Tommy needs his aunt to point out a flaw in his plans for his future. He’s clever enough to think his way out of a very difficult situation, but he doesn’t think of everything.
Tomorrow: We resume Ghost Ship at Chapter 24.
Hidden Resources
Runig’s Rock
In which the treasures of the Clan are brought home.
The youngsters of the clan start to become involved in events, and show individual personalities. (Some of them, anyway. Though Shindi and Mik can probably be excused, considering their age.)
The obvious question is: what was that other ship waiting for? My guess is, it was waiting for Natesa. That is, not for her specifically, but for whoever might come to bring news of Korval’s situation, thereby increasing the number of Korval’s children who could be captured in one swoop.
(Another possibility is that there was some reason why they needed to watch someone actually pass through the outer defences before they made their attack; perhaps to check that they’d identified the number and location of all the defences. Against that is the fact that they apparently didn’t hang around to watch Natesa pass through the outer defences, but left to avoid being caught hanging around – which is interesting in itself, because it suggests they had some way of knowing she was coming.)
Another question is: If they hadn’t waited, and had attacked the Rock before Natesa arrived, would they have had any better success? I’m not sure they would; Luken is no Natesa, but it wouldn’t do to underestimate him.
Tomorrow: “Kin Ties”
I Dare – Chapter 57
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
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 31
Day 51
Standard Year 1393
Lytaxin
Erob’s Clanhouse
In which the Ring passes.
That makes two people in a short space of time who have spoken to Val Con of Korval’s responsibilities under the Contract, which is a subject that doesn’t often come up in conversation outside of Korval. It might be that, as close allies, they know something most don’t, but I think it’s less that the Contract is some kind of secret as that most people who don’t know Korval well don’t take the idea seriously. (And at that, I’m not entirely sure Emrith Tiazan wasn’t being sarcastic. We might infer that she believes in Korval’s belief in the Contract but doesn’t entirely believe in the Contract herself.)
The exchange when Korval-pernard’i removes the ring from her finger and Delm Korval places the ring on his own finger reminds me of something that I didn’t remark on when it happened: Pat Rin put the false ring the Department gave him on the second finger of his left hand, Korval-in-Trust’s finger, not the third finger, the delm’s finger. The Department was expecting that Pat Rin would happily be delm if there were nobody left to tell him he couldn’t, but what they weren’t considering is that as long as Pat Rin lives, there will always be one person of Korval judging his suitability: Pat Rin himself. Even in the eventuality that he must take up the delm’s ring because there is nobody else left, Pat Rin doesn’t count himself worthy to take up the delm’s melant’i with it, only to hold the ring in trust until Korval is able to produce someone qualified to be delm.
We also get, speaking of that incident, a detailed description of the true ring and thus the signs by which Pat Rin knew the false ring to be false. I wonder what it says about the Department that they didn’t know about the signs of wear. It might just be that they couldn’t find any way of examining the ring closely without arousing suspicion. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if it never even occurred to them to look; they might have assumed that a wealthy Liaden family would always get any damage quickly repaired.
I Dare – Chapter 24
Day 50
Standard Year 1393
Lytaxin
Erob’s Clanhouse and Garden
In which kin share news of kin.
The bit about Shan and Nova having different preferred languages for casual speech is a nice reflection of the fact their lives have taken different paths despite them being siblings. Shan was raised as a Terran among Terrans for the first few years of his life, and although he’s embraced his Liaden heritage, he spends much of his time as a Trader out in the wide universe and often surrounded by Terrans again. Nova was born and raised on Liad, and her line of work keeps her there for the most part; she must have left the planet a few times, if only to earn her pilot’s licence, but this here may well be the furthest she’s ever been from home.
I’m not sure I understand how Val Con knew about his mother, but I don’t feel too bad about that because it sounds like Val Con isn’t too sure himself.
I Dare – Chapter 18
Day 307
Standard Year 1392
Blair Road
Surebleak
In which the new boss is not the same as the old boss.
One hazard of reading a series like this in chronological order like this is that one occasionally encounters two stories that are set within a few days of each other but written years apart, and then it can be difficult to avoid noticing discrepancies.
The difference between the implication here about the carpet’s creator and the explicit description in “Persistence” is, I think, clearly a deliberate creative decision by the authors, and can be easily explained in-universe as a deliberate creative decision by Pat Rin, who would not misinform a potential buyer as to the value of a carpet but also knows the value of tuning the details to fit the audience. I can’t see any such clear-cut explanation for the fairly large difference between the price Pat Rin paid for the carpet in “Persistence” and the price he remembers paying here.
On the other hand, there are good juxtapositions, too. Snyder taking Cheever at face value is extra amusing coming so soon after Beba seeing right through him.