Tag Archives: Vashtara

Fledgling – Chapter 36

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Melchiza
Transit School

In which Theo and Kamele make progress.

On Melchiza, pilots are recognised as rare and special people, and apparently this means that Melchizan pilot culture is affected by the Melchizan attitude that leaders should stand aloof and not hold themselves back trying to help others less special. Inspector Vidige’s lesson about a pilot bearing sole responsibility for the decisions he must make is not entirely new (I’m particularly reminded of Aelliana in Scout’s Progress, and the lesson that she must learn to back her own judgement if she wishes to be a pilot), but the emphasis is different. At least it’s somewhat softened by Pilot-Instructor Arman’s comment which suggests that Melchizan pilots do form bonds of loyalty with their crew (like the brother’s friends in the folk tale?); self-sufficiency is one thing, but if they’d been taking it to the extent of not even trusting a co-pilot that would have been asking for serious trouble sooner or later.

Fledgling – Chapter 34

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Delgado
Efraim Agricultural Zone

In which Jen Sar and Theo each enter unexplored territory.

The folk-tale, and Theo’s response to it, shows a lot about the differences between Delgado and Melchiza. The moral ascribed to it is revealing about how Melchiza comes to be the way it is. The difference between Delgadan and Melchizan ideas of appropriate emergencies for childrens’ television perhaps says more about Delgado than Melchiza, or at least shows Delgado as standing further than Melchiza from present-day America on this subject.

The dance around Theo’s class assignment suggests that Melchiza’s Security apparatus, though omnipresent, is not directed always to the same goal. The order for Theo to be moved into the Parole Class must have come from some branch of Security — one suspects the branch which contains that helpful lady with the blue buttonhole who was so eager to help the research team avoid doing any research, or perhaps, if it’s a distinction with a difference, whoever might have been on the other end of Hafley’s mumu before she was made to turn it off — but Pilot-Instructor Arman seems to be of the opinion that whatever they’re up to is not worth endangering the health of a pilot.

Fledgling – Chapter 33

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Melchiza
City of Treasures

In which the first full day on Melchiza brings some surprises.

What with their native guide suddenly called away, and all the difficulties attendant on studying things at the House of Treasures, and this offer that they all go and have a holiday somewhere nice while the House’s own staff look things up for them, one might almost get the impression that somebody doesn’t want the research team getting near the Beltaire Collection…

Even if one wasn’t getting that impression, though, Kamele’s response is the only correct one. The whole point of coming was to see for themselves; if they left the job to others now, be they never so trustworthy, they might as well not have come.

I don’t think Hafley was specifically targetting Crowley with the comment about muddling the files; I think that was a general remark that Crowley deliberately chose to take personally as a rhetorical trick to put her off-balance. (But the kind of personal he chose to take it as is another reminder of how gender roles are seen on Delgado.)

Fledgling – Chapter 32

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Melchiza

In which accommodations are reached.

So, Clyburn’s family lives on Melchiza, and he’s not only counted a native but accorded a considerable amount of respect by the people responsible for keeping visitors in line. Isn’t that interesting?

Hafley’s crack about Theo being only good enough for Team Three because she’s not properly attentive doesn’t accord with any of what we’ve learned about how Learning Teams are actually allocated. A sign, perhaps, of how properly attentive Hafley was during her own schooling?

Fledgling – Chapter 31

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Vashtara
Breakfast All Year

In which Cho and Win Ton bid farewell to Theo.

When I finished reading this chapter, my eyes might have been a bit wet too.

Despite saying to Theo earlier that very few of her teachers on Delgado are likely to be pilots, Cho knows that there’s at least one, because Theo already knew some piloting lore when they met. She must have a good idea who it is, too; Theo’s told her outright that Professor Kiladi was the one who introduced her to the lacework, and probably has likewise mentioned that it was him who chose and proposed the Suwello lessons (and if she hasn’t, Cho’s the type to have been able to find it out anyway). But I think she’s refraining from being specific at least partly by way of nudging Theo herself to the realization of the role Jen Sar has played in her education.

Fledgling – Chapter 30

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Vashtara
Breakfast All Year

In which the end of the journey is anticipated.

The research team, warned by Captain sig’Radia, are planning ahead for contingencies that might arise on Melchiza, and trying to decide where the line between advertant and overcautious might lie. Professor Crowley’s past experience comes in useful, and he displays a bit more depth in the process.

Theo, on the other hand, isn’t paying much attention to Melchiza yet, and not yet taking the warnings about its potential dangers entirely seriously. Her focus is on enjoying the journey, which despite her initial reluctance she has come to decide is binjali. She does seem to have been having some thoughts about her future beyond Melchiza, though, if her burst of enthusiasm at the thought of a piloting school is an indication.

The first post in this re-read went up one year ago today.

Fledgling – Chapter 29

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Vashtara
Atrium Lounge

In which Jen Sar makes a contact.

Lystra Mason doesn’t have much of a future in surreptition: when she attempts to pretend that she doesn’t know what Jen Sar is talking about, she denies a specific accusation that he hasn’t explicitly made yet. It’s true that he hints at it, to show he knows what she’s up to, but if she really had no idea what he was talking about the clue would have gone straight past her. (It went straight past me, and I did know what he was talking about; I had to go back and re-read what he said before I could see what prompted her denial.)

It has occurred to me to wonder whether the people behind this plan on Delgado are the same people behind what happened to Aelliana in Mouse and Dragon. The possibility has surely occurred to Aelliana and Jen Sar as well, which perhaps explains the degree of Aelliana’s interest here.

Fledgling – Chapter 28

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Vashtara
Dining Hall Lobby

In which offers are made at mealtimes.

I’m amused by Jen Sar’s private observations of the care Roni has taken with her appearance. But I wonder about his discourse on the subject of the first-pair: it doesn’t seem in character for him, but on the other hand it doesn’t seem in character that he would simply be saying whatever he thinks Lystra wants to hear; like many Liadens, he’s disinclined to use an outright lie when a misleadingly-stated truth will serve. (As witness his statement about Lystra standing guardian over that which interests him nearly.) One aspect that comes to mind is that, while he says that he believes in the advantages of a first-pair partner being superior in age and experience, he doesn’t say how much, and leaves Roni’s mother to assume that he considers the gap between Roni and himself appropriate, where perhaps his true belief is only that things are likely to go smoother with a partner who’s a little bit older and not a complete novice.

Aelliana’s assertion that she knew no questionable people before she met him is… maybe true, from a certain point of view; it depends on what questions one is inclined to ask. She certainly had friends among the scouts, who many cultured Liadens including members of her own family would be inclined to consider questionable people. And, for that matter, there were members of her own family who were somewhat questionable themselves, though she might not have thought to say so before she met him.

There are several observations a person might make about the conversation with Hafley and her onagrata, but I’ll content myself with noting that the mention of Clyburn’s pull with Administration provides an additional suggestion, if one were needed, that Hafley’s advice to Kamele about cultivating a young man for the benefit of one’s career was drawn from personal experience.

Fledgling – Chapter 27

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Vashtara
Mauve Level
Stateroom

In which Kamele didn’t tell Jen Sar who Theo’s father wasn’t.

Here it is, laid out: Theo is the daughter of Kamele and Jen Sar, a choice Kamele made aside from tradition and even though she had no way of knowing, then, how long-standing her relationship with Jen Sar would prove to be. (And despite advice to the contrary from Ella; I wonder if that’s another element in Ella not getting on with Jen Sar.) And so Theo’s inherited from her father’s side, and is now at last properly growing into, the reactions that would make her an excellent pilot if that were a career path common for daughters of Delgado.

(And also, presumably, her ability to visualise numbers and movement, in her case by way of her lacework. I guess that’s a pilot thing, because Jen Sar had reason to think the lacework would be a useful suggestion, and Win Ton understood it when Theo told him about it. But I keep thinking that it reminds me of one particular pilot who had an especial ability to visualise numbers and movement, and wondering what it might mean that in this respect she most resembles Aelliana, who of all the people closely involved in Theo’s upbringing we can be confident didn’t donate any of Theo’s genes.)

Another reason why the idea of rearranging the flashback chapters wouldn’t have worked is this chapter, which is a mixture of present-day and flashback. Getting it into chronological order would have required breaking up individual chapters, an extreme which even at my worst I thought was going too far.

Fledgling – Chapter 26

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Vashtara
Mauve Level
Stateroom

In which Win Ton explains.

Win Ton, in his desire to have everything set out clearly and plainly, produces an explanation that’s a marvel of not getting to the point. It is well for the calmness of the conversation that Kamele is an advertant scholar who waits for all the information to be in before she advances a hypothesis, because it was pretty obvious that Win Ton was giving her entirely the wrong impression about the “mature self-discovery” he’s been sharing with Theo.

It would appear that Roni’s sense of self-consequence and poor grasp of teamwork is shared with her mother, who is now revealed to be part of a conspiracy that offers personal advancement at the expense of the integrity of the University. I wonder how offended Professor Mason would be to learn that Jen Sar considers her the easier and less challenging of his potential targets.

The description of Jen Sar’s location offers a passing detail that, if I noticed the first time I read this, I didn’t retain: that the Residence Wall was built after the original campus of the University burned down. It makes one wonder just how much excitement is concealed behind Kamele’s description of the Founders being “a little too optimistic about human nature”.