Tag Archives: Vaughn Crowley

Fledgling – Chapter 41

Delgado

In which Kamele and Theo go home.

Immediately, Theo is thrown into a situation that shows how much she’s changed in the six months she’s been away. (Incidentally, considering they spent maybe a week on Melchiza, that means they spent the better part of three months on Vashtara in each direction. Kind of drives home what a serious undertaking the trip was.) The terminal is the kind of chaotic jostling situation that would have been a disaster during her “clumsy” phase, but not only does she not create any disasters, she deftly avoids several that might have been caused by the inattention of the people around her. And the fact that Kamele essentially chose to throw her into this situation by sending her off to get the luggage unattended shows that Kamele trusted she would be able to get through it unscathed.

(On the other hand, the luggage scene also shows Theo with a new habit that’s going to cause her some trouble in Saltation. Continuity!)

Boy, that terminal helper is really inadvertant. Somehow, I doubt that the comment Kamele left on his feedback form was a complimentary one.

I’m pretty sure the reunion in this chapter is the first time in the book we’ve seen the entire family interacting; we’ve had Theo with Jen Sar, Theo with Kamele, and Kamele with Jen Sar, but not all three, for the entire time the family has been living separately. The occasional moments when all three have been in the same place together (such as when Theo showed Kamele and Jen Sar the snake AI) happened off the page — until now, when the family is properly back together.

Fledgling – Chapter 39

Melchiza Station

In which Theo and Kamele start for home, Jen Sar enters the home stretch, and Hafley can never go home again.

Clyburn stops pretending to be the kind of bubble-headed male no Delgadan would suspect of being a criminal mastermind, and is revealed to be, among other things, a pilot. Which suggests further covering-up from his relative in Admin, since he wasn’t issued a pilot’s ID when the research team arrived. It also makes me wonder again about the divided motivations of the blue-shirts: if he’s a pilot and a native Melchizan he must have known enough about how Melchizan pilots think to be able to predict that they’d protect Theo. Although that assumes he knew Theo was a pilot, and I get the impression that came as an unpleasant surprise to him on the bus; apparently he wasn’t paying enough attention to Theo on the Vashtara to notice how she’d been spending her time. He must be kicking himself for that now (or, if he’s the kind of person who is never at fault for their own lapses of judgement, finding some excuse to blame Theo).

For all the trouble it’s caused in the past, Theo’s pilot nature has been really helpful several times this trip, both in obvious ways like protecting her at the Transit School and in indirect ways like leading her into a situation where she can, unlike the sheltered Kamele, recognise violent intent in time to avoid danger.

Fledgling – Chapter 38

Melchiza
City of Treasures

In which Kamele and Theo are reunited.

It’s all very well for the Chaperon to say that perhaps Kamele might tour the school next time she visits; even supposing there’s any likelihood of a next time, which I doubt, I somehow suspect that no matter how many visits Kamele might make it will always turn out that the schedule is too tight.

The detail about Jen Sar having installed an Orbital Traffic Scanner in his office to keep him company while Kamele and Theo are away is one of those prequel-type details that doesn’t seem particularly significant to someone following the story in chronological order, but has a special resonance to those of us who first read the series as it was published: it happens that in publication order the first time we met Professor Jen Sar Kiladi he was sitting in his office listening to the Orbital Traffic Scanner at just the right moment to change the course of his life.

Fledgling – Chapter 37

Melchiza
City of Treasures

In which Theo is getting along better than might have been expected.

I have a suspicion that Hafley is telling the truth when she says that she would have had Beltaire come along, given the choice, but not with the motive she suggests. Until the research team produces solid evidence, Beltaire’s observations are the key to their case, and if she were to come along on an interplanetary journey you never know but that something might happen to her — even without the hints we’ve been getting that something is likely to happen to her in any case if she ever returns to Melchiza.

Her accusation that Kamele is too ambitious, on the other hand, is a classic case of accusing one’s opponent of one’s own sins.

I think I see, now, what the point of having Theo assigned to the Parole Class was: So that it could be revealed at an appropriate moment in an attempt to make Kamele abandon her research and rush off to rescue Theo — which would probably, given the security set-up, only be possible if the whole research team agrees to leave the archive with her, thereby bringing the research trip to an end — or else to reduce her usefulness to the research effort by distracting her if she does remain in the archive. (An appropriate moment being one after Hafley’s cover has already been blown to such an extent that it won’t be giving anything away to reveal that she has secret knowledge about what’s been happening to Theo.) I don’t think it’ll work, though, precisely because Hafley’s accusation of ambition isn’t true; Kamele is here in service of a greater cause than her own ambition, and knows that she can’t turn away now even for Theo’s sake. I doubt she’s going to be badly distracted, either; she’s already proven that she’s made of sterner stuff than Hafley thinks, and I suspect Hafley’s just given her more reason to concentrate on getting the job done.

Fledgling – Chapter 36

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 35

Efraim Agricultural Zone

In which Jen Sar, Theo, and Kamele pass beyond the gatekeepers.

It’s good that it’s Appletorn who gets to explain to the Chapelia why their course of action is not as desirable as they might have thought; if too much of the work of saving Delgado fell to Jen Sar the outsider, one might start wondering whether it was worth the effort of saving. Looked at another way, it simply makes sense that it’s Appletorn who produces that explanation; after all, he’s the man whose profession is Advertancy, the practice of knowing what you’re getting yourself into.

Incidentally, it’s looking increasingly likely that my question from way back about whether the Chapelia has any male members can be answered in the negative.

Pilot-Instructor Arman’s test of Theo seems rather unforgiving; if she hadn’t known how to handle a bowli ball properly, she could have been seriously injured. Is it that if she had been laying an unearned claim to the bowli ball, it would have cancelled out the testimony of her dancing and left her, in Arman’s eyes, not enough of a pilot to deserve protection?

I’m getting the distinct impression that Hafley knows about Theo being reassigned to the Parole Class, although since they’re now being held incommunicado she has no way of knowing that Theo hasn’t gone. And that makes me wonder: since they are being held incommunicado, there’s no way of using Theo’s situation to exert pressure on Kamele, which makes it look like nothing more productive than spite at Kamele standing up to her about continuing the research.

Fledgling – Chapter 33

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

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 30

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

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.