Tag Archives: the usual rules apply

Saltation – Chapter 40

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Volmer
Underport

In which Theo gets a better offer.

Though he mentions it casually, the Uncle’s account of Theo’s forefathers is a reminder that he Knows Things. Given Delgado’s emphasis on the maternal line, there aren’t many people who even know that Jen Sar Kiladi is Theo’s father, and the number of people who have accurate knowledge of Jen Sar’s ancestors is smaller yet. It raises questions about how the Uncle found out, and how long he’s known, and for that matter what led him to think it was a thing worth finding out about.

The ship Theo’s being offered, which possesses “both monetary and sentimental value”, is called Arin’s Toss, and was “built on an old Terran commissioner’s ship plan”. One recalls that Jethri’s father Arin was a Terran trade commissioner, and suspects a depth of history that’s not being elaborated on.

And the Uncle has a fractin in his money pouch. It’s been a while since we’ve seen one of those, long enough that it took me a couple of times reading those paragraphs to recognise what it was.

Saltation – Chapter 34

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Primadonna
Out from Alanzia

In which Mayko Ikari explains her presence.

So, now we have some idea of when this is in relation to the rest of what’s going on: it’s after the Yxtrang invasion of Lytaxin was defeated. The question now: how much after? Not a great deal, perhaps, if the effects are only just becoming apparent — and Mayko’s remark that nobody is quite sure what Korval is up to suggests that it’s before Korval’s very public standoff with the Department.

It’s interesting, getting a bit of a look at how all that stuff appears from the outside; a reminder that the universe is wide enough to contain people to whom all that life-and-death struggle is a distant event that carries opportunity in its wake.

Saltation – Chapter 26

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Codrescu Station
Eylot Nearspace

In which Theo becomes a Guild member in good standing.

The bit about Hevelin being more directly inquisitive and seeming to understand more than the norbears in Vashtara‘s pet library accords with what I remember from their respective previous appearances. It’s also interesting, although there isn’t enough information to be sure what it means, if anything. Is it because Hevelin is older than the pet library norbears? Or because they’re “hothouse norbears”, raised in a comfortable environment (by people who think they’re just clever animals) while Hevelin’s been making his own way in the universe? Or perhaps the line of causality runs the other way, and Hevelin’s intellect and personality led him as a young norbear to choose a wandering life instead of settling for a cushy spot somewhere.

Saltation – Chapter 15

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Administrative Hearing Room Three
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which certain facts are found.

Theo’s inner calm — as she says, the calm a pilot needs to act not only quickly but well — is, I think, at least partly thanks to the ministrations of the Healer. Wilsmyth does not seem to have attained a similar degree of calm, so apparently he either wasn’t offered the same service or didn’t take to it.

The amount of interplay going on at his table during the hearing suggests to me that he’s inclined to push for more and his advisors are inclined to believe that doing so would not be in his best interests. I note particularly the urgent whispering when the question of victimhood is raised; I can well believe that someone with Wilsmyth’s attitude would consider himself the injured party, but his advisors must be aware that if he tries to push that interpretation of events it’s likely to go against him.

(I’m reminded of something that occurs in passing in Scout’s Progress: a dispute between two Liaden clans which might have been settled in arbitration if one of the disputants had not, as the character describing it says, “taken up the melant’i of victim” and insisted on a formal hearing. Which proceeded to decide resoundingly against the self-assigned victim. But I digress.)

Theo completely fails to take the hint about wanting to speak outside the range of official ears, and has to have it spelled out, but she is young and relatively guileless, and particularly she was raised in a world where “outside the range of official ears” was not a concept to be considered, let alone a situation to be sought out.

Part of her advisors’ plan for balancing Wilsmyth’s attack on her flight time involves her getting to fly a Star King Mark VI, which has the effect of making Wilsmyth seem even pettier in retrospect. Even had Theo been the type to be tempted by the prospect of being upgraded to a newer and shinier aircraft, an upgrade from a Mark II to almost-a-Mark-III doesn’t seem like a bribe worth very much.

Theo being set straight by Instructor yos’Senchul reminds me of an incident when I was about her age and one of my teachers had to set me straight in similarly uncompromising fashion after I did something thoughtless. I don’t want to dwell on what it was I did, which was so spectacularly ill-considered that the me of today can’t imagine doing it, but it seems appropriate to acknowledge that moments like these, uncomfortable as they can be at the time, are important: I’m the person I am today, who would never do something like that, at least in part because of having that experience when I was the person I was then. And if we’re lucky, we get that kind of thoughtlessness out of the way in a relatively safe place where a vehement set-down from a teacher is the worst that results and we can take the lesson without coming to any lasting harm.

The Space at Tinsori Light

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In which Jen Sin yos’Phelium leaves his ring at Tinsori Light.

This is one of my favourite of the Liaden short stories, but I’m having the problem again of not knowing what to say about it, and not feeling moved to talk about things I might have made more of if it were my first reading.

The story does not give a specific date, though we know it’s before Scout’s Progress and on the other hand the presence of an autodoc on Jen Sin’s ship argues for it being later than Balance of Trade. I stuck it here because there was a gap, and I thought it fitted thematically with the stories we’ve been reading lately, with the concern about Old Technology.

The Old Tech autodoc that repairs Jen Sin is clearly related to the one Cantra had in her ship, complete with the “you’re now in perfect health, but you could be better than perfect” spiel.

The thing I’m wondering is: how did that set of coords find its way into Korval’s set of emergency destinations in the first place? Someone connected with Jela might have known about the Tinsori waystation, but that was in the old universe, and as Lorith points out the Light’s location and coords changed in the transition to the new. The optimistic option is that somebody marked the space down as a quiet, out-of-the way place to hide out for a bit (like Bechimo‘s favourite hiding place in Dragon Ship) without noticing or being noticed by the Light. A less reassuring possibility is that there was someone else in the past, less suspicious than Jen Sin, who had their ship repaired by the Light and then took it back into the wide universe.