In which norbears are good at opening doors, flour bags, and interplanetary relations.

A thing I find about the Liaden Universe short stories is that some of them work as stand-alone stories in their own right, but some of them feel like they’re just a part of some larger story which may or may not have been written down. (Of course, they often are; many of the short stories were written as a way for the authors to explore some detail that would then become part of the tapestry of one of the novels.) “Out of True” feels like one of those stories, but given that the authors are currently booked out years in advance it doesn’t seem likely we’ll be getting an entire novel of norbear embassy adventures any time soon.

Norbears! Our first norbears in this read-through, much earlier than I was expecting them. In a sense, the first norbears ever, because the first to be called by that name (though it’s mentioned that they are already known to the Scouts by another name, and there are already planets where they’re illegal). And it might well be this meeting that set the pattern for human and norbear interactions followed by, among others, Theo’s friend Hevelin.

Our scene is laid upon the planet Thakaran, but it’s hinted that this may not be the origin planet of the norbears, nor the only one where they are found. There’s that intriguing myth about them being found on other planets with Old Tech sites.

Meanwhile, on the human side of the story, we get another view of the Terran Spacers’ society. There’s an interesting detail in the fact that Tranh, Susrim, Falmer, and Squithy are siblings, and therefore by our reckoning all the same degree of cousin to Klay, but by their reckoning Tranh is an uncle, apparently because he’s in charge.

(It would appear by that that most Spacers have an uncle, one way or another, which makes Grig’s Uncle stick out somewhat less. Speaking of Grig’s Uncle Yuri, I wonder if Crystal Biogenics, “about as dark as you can get and still be seen”, is any relation to Crystal Energy Consultants, the company through which Dulsey’s Uncle Yuri hires Theo…)

One of those little grace notes that add to a story by saying much in little: that the call for the all-crew meeting includes the sentence, “All crew members includes you, Squithy, no matter what you’re doing.”

There isn’t a specific date on this story. The Spacer cultural details show that it’s roughly about the same time as Jethri, but I’m thinking it might even be a bit before that; the reaction to the briefly-appearing Liadens suggests that they’re not seen around very often.