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Plan B – Chapters 7 & 8

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14th Conquest Corps
Lytaxin

Liad: Department of Interior Command Headquarters

In which Nelirikk No-Troop sympathizes with a squirrel, and Lytaxin is defended by a ship orbiting Waymart.

I’m getting the idea that the Yxtrang are very concerned with saving face, to the point that they insist on appearing effective even at the expense of actual effectiveness: their response to making an error, here as at the end of Agent of Change, is to cover it up, even if that means nobody gets to learn from the situation and avoid future errors. When Nelirikk offers unsolicted advice — which, worse, turns out to be correct after the General ignores it — the General is more concerned about having his authority undermined than about finding out what other advice Nelirikk might be able to offer. And, as Nelirikk himself notes, the whole thing might have been avoided if the Yxtrang Command had chosen to learn from his previous encounter with a Liaden Scout, instead of shoving that under the carpet too.

(And then there’s the incidental business of Over-Technician Akrant, whose career is ruined because his carelessness ruined the General’s big entrance, even though the big entrance was, as far as I can see, entirely ceremonial and made no actual difference to the progress of the campaign.)

That’s an interesting detail about Yxtrang high command being situated at “Temp Headquarters”. I wonder if it’s genuinely temporary, or if by now it’s become settled and retains the name only by tradition.

It didn’t occur to me the first time it was mentioned, but here is the Department of the Interior sending Tyl Von sig’Alda out in a ship that frequently if not continually reports its status back to Headquarters by pin-beam — and, as we have been recently reminded, pin-beam is generally regarded as expensive and only for use in particularly important circumstances. So that says something about the Department’s priorities, even if the pin-beam beacon is just another of the special accoutrements attaching to sig’Alda’s special mission, like the deputy badge and the code phrase. (If all the Department’s ships are similarly equipped, that says something else again.)

Plan B – Chapter 1

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Liad
Department of Interior Command Headquarters

In which the Commander of Agents reviews the situation.

A new book. After two months with Partners in Necessity sitting by my elbow, it feels a bit weird to look down and see Plan B instead.

This first chapter is mostly recap, which makes sense for the first Liaden novel to be published in a decade, even if it’s not obviously useful to a fan who’s just finished re-reading Carpe Diem.

There is some new information slipped in amid the recap: the military action on Lytaxin was mentioned in Agent of Change when the Gyrfalks shipped out to it, but this is the first time it’s been said that it was set off by the Department in an attempt to deprive Korval of its ally Erob.

The recap also mentions that Korval has disappeared lock, stock and barrel, “ship, children, servants, and pets”; it struck me on this re-read that we’ve since had a short story about where the children went, but they didn’t have any servants or pets with them — so where did the servants and pets go?

Trade Secret – Chapter 13

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Keravath, on Port, Balfour

In which Jethri and ter’Astin finish their business on Balfour and move on to their next destination.

Trouble indeed: somebody has been aboard the ship. Somebody who had a key, which they ought not to have had, and by the signs is a Scout. (Or an ex-Scout? I continue to cast suspicious looks in a very particular direction.)

Jethri’s meeting with the memorable Mr Dorster has turned up more of Iza’s neglect: basic documents and proofs of identity never completed or filed.

The Scout is also interested in the mysterious manifesto, “Arin’s Envidaria of the Seventeen Worlds”. As it is now too late to ask Freza more about it, Jethri merely tells him, truthfully but incompletely, that he never heard of it before today. The Seventeen Worlds are apparently a cluster of planets along the galatic arm where travel is unusually restricted by cosmic phenomena that are expected to last for the next few centuries; if Arin was taking the long view – and considering how old he probably was, it might not have seemed as long as all that – the Envidaria may involve a plan for how things will shift when the cosmic phenomena get out of the way. (And although “the next few centuries” is a pretty vague timespan, I can’t help noting that one plausible interpretation of a few centuries on from this novel puts us right about the time the next Liaden novel is due to be set…)

And now they are off to Vincza, where the Scout has hope for finding something and Jethri has been invited to a regional trade meeting (run by the Carresens Coordinating Committee, a name which rings a distinct bell: the Carresens are still trading in one of the later novels, and I seem to remember one of them mentioning Arin in a historical context, though I don’t recall what is said).

I wonder if Freza’s ship will also be attending the trade meeting. Not just because of the several reasons Jethri has for wanting to see her again, but also because the meeting’s being held in the system where they had their last, ill-fated meeting, and it would be kind of appropriate for it also to be the location of their next meeting, where hopefully they will fare better.

Trade Secret – Chapter 7

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Control Deck, Keravath, Outbound from Boltston

In which the junior trader and the senior pilot both have things to learn.

I find Iza’s treatment of Jethri, as revealed in this chapter, quite upsetting. Neglect is one thing – I can kind of see (which is not to say I approve) how an intention to be rid of him might translate into a desire not to invest more than necessary of ship’s resources into his development, when he’d be gone before there was any chance of a return on the investment. But to deliberately hamper his development, to not only deny him the opportunity to develop a potential (and ter’Astin’s right, the tale of his fathers says he’s got the genes for it, at the very least), but to go about actively persuading him that he doesn’t even possess the potential – I just… ugh.

The more we learn about Iza, the less I like her.

The Scout says that he knows of Jethri’s father and Jethri’s uncle, “and more now than when first you and I met”, which apparently extends to knowing something of Jethri’s father’s father as well. That being so, I wonder whether ter’Astin, when he speaks of Jethri’s uncle, means Uncle Paitor, who is the only person Jethri knows to call uncle… or if it’s Arin’s Uncle he has in mind?