In which Tolly Jones gets a new assignment.
I wonder if Tolly’s ever going to learn that Haz isn’t as easy to manipulate as he keeps thinking she is. (I wonder if he’s not letting himself learn it, because the thing he keeps failing to take into account is her connection to him, and processing that would mean thinking about the implications.)
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In which matters proceed with unexpected swiftness.
We were discussing pacing in the comments a few posts ago, and I said that I have trouble judging it because I only read one chapter a day. This isn’t entirely true; although I usually do read one chapter and write one blog post a day, I sometimes get ahead of the schedule if the story is exciting enough to pull me forward. (The record is the end of Scout’s Progress and beginning of Mouse and Dragon, where I burned through at least a dozen chapters as quickly as I could write the blog posts between.) The reason I mention this is that there have been a couple of places in Neogenesis, including this chapter, where I’ve started to feel that pull forward, only for it to be cut off as the story switches to a different set of characters. Switching to a new storyline every time the current one gets exciting is a way to keep suspense, but it also means that each storyline has trouble building momentum.
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In which the light keeper shares the gift of his knowledge.
Last time, I mentioned two things an experienced Liaden Universe reader might know about the light keepers that someone coming to this novel cold wouldn’t, and already both have been brought out in the open. Which is fair enough, because they’re both important things to know.
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Ahab-Esais
In which Tocohl and Inki meet the light keepers.
They’re not dead yet. That’s a good start.
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Vivulonj Prosperu
In which a change of course is called for.
I don’t yet understand how the failure of the Catalinc Project could result in everything that is ascribed to it, but I note that it sounds very similar to the potential bad future Ren Zel has foreseen.
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In which Inki and Tocohl are made an offer they can’t refuse.
The last line of this chapter is one of those interesting cases where it’s just one more piece of new information to the reader who hasn’t read any earlier Liaden books, but it will have considerable significance for a more experience Liaden Universe reader. (Though what significance, exactly, will depend on which earlier books they’ve read, and remembered.)
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Bechimo
Conference Circle
In which secrets are discussed.
I suspect we’ll be hearing about that other ship again some time. I did wonder if it might be the Uncle’s ship — it would be nicely ironic if Theo and her father were so close to each other without knowing it — but Bechimo would have recognised it, having seen it at close quarters in the past.
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In which Quin yos’Phelium finds occupation.
Oh, so that’s what a nerligig does.
It strikes me that “Roving Gambler” is very much about what the Code calls “proper conduct”. It’s full of people facing the question of what would be the correct thing to do in the circumstance, and as like as not finding that it’s not an easy question on a world like Surebleak, which is continually being challenged on what answers it did have. The kinds range from small domestic questions involving a father and his son to big policy issues involving the Boss of Bosses (and in classic melant’i fashion, the extreme ends of the spectrum involve the same people wearing different hats).
Korval has it particularly bad, as Pat Rin points out at the end, because they’re used to living on Liad and having the Code to consult on questions like this, but now they’re on Surebleak and the answers are different. (Something that’s foreshadowed all the way through the story, as Quin keeps finding moments where proper Liaden behaviour doesn’t quite fit the circumstance.) I’m not surprised that it was Kareen who’s been given the job of figuring out their situation; if anybody knows about proper conduct, it’s her. It’s interesting, though, that she’s specifically stated to have been ordered by the Delms to study the question: Is that just them putting an official stamp on the enterprise, or did they find that she was unwilling to get started?
I suppose if there’s any course of study that might help prepare one for running a planet, Generalist might be it. It’s been a while since we’ve encountered a professional Generalist; I’m pretty sure the last one was Quin’s many-times-grandfather Jela.
On the question of Surebleak’s seasons, I find this story inconclusive; all we hear about the weather is that it’s recently turned good after a long bad stretch, which doesn’t say much on a planet with weather like Surebleak’s, and anyway it’s not clear precisely how long after Ghost Ship it takes place, so there’d be no way of comparing.
Tomorrow: “The Rifle’s First Wife”
In which Aelliana frames and tries a piloting addendum under stringent field conditions.
I have to admit that the details of Aelliana’s course addendum go straight over my head. But it certainly sounds impressive.
The quote at the beginning of this chapter is the fragment that eventually grew into the short story “The Space at Tinsori Light” (which, chronological order being what it is, we have already had). Here, its purpose is only to add another angle to the introduction of the pilot’s ring.
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.