Tag Archives: Zan Der pel’Kirmin

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 29

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.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 28

In which Aelliana dances.

Daav doesn’t appear too put out that Aelliana has realised he tipped off Zan Der pel’Kermin, even though he asked that worthy person not mention his intervention. I surmise that he wouldn’t have minded Aelliana being told about Daav’s involvement, but wished to avoid any mention of that inconvenient person Delm Korval.

Things are going well for Aelliana and Daav at this point, but last chapter and this contain reminders that they both have troubles lurking in the background which, when they strike, are only going to strike the harder for having been successfully dodged thus far.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 27

In which several people ask, reluctantly, “Now what?”

I’ve said this before, in the comments under Chapter 39 of Local Custom, but I might as well say it again so it appears in a post: I don’t believe that lifemating works on the basis of there being a pair of people predestined to join together. (Which is a relief, because it’s a pretty horrifying idea, as Daav suggests here: what if something happens to one half of the match before they meet, and the other is left forever incomplete?) Every time we see a lifemate bond form in this series, it’s a consequence, not a cause, something that happens to a pair of people who have already joined together in other ways. It makes sense that some people can’t form a lifemate bond at all, and that those can can’t do it with just anybody, but I don’t believe it’s as reductive as each person having one and only one possible partner.

Here’s an interesting sentence: “Jelaza Kazone had not spoken and he wished, with everything in him, to be at Binjali’s.” Is it that the Tree did manage to suggest an idea to Daav without him realising, or is it that the Tree didn’t speak because it knew that he was already, on his own initiative and by his own desire, going to do what it would have told him to do?

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 26

In which Samiv tel’Izak is introduced to the Tree.

The Tree disapproves of Samiv tel’Izak, and is not shy of making its disapproval known. What the basis of its disapproval might be is less easy to see. It’s unlikely to be merely that marrying her would make Daav unhappy; the happiness of its fellow creatures has not always been the Tree’s primary concern, and Daav was making some progress toward a comfortable union before the Tree itself stomped on his efforts.

One suspects that it disapproves of Pilot tel’Izak because she is not Aelliana Caylon and the Tree has realised, as Daav has not yet, that Aelliana Caylon is an available possibility. Presumably it’s aware of Aelliana second-hand, through Daav — though one does wonder what other sources of information it might have, remembering that it was a suggestion from the Tree which put Daav in Pilot Caylon’s path in the first place…

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 25

In which Delm Korval goes visiting.

Zan Der pel’Kirmin and his family join the collection of impressively detailed one-off characters. From the little we get to see of them, I like them a lot.

Ran Eld is locking himself into a course that’s going to take him nowhere good; every hint he gets that he might be in serious trouble is just making him stick to it with greater determination. It doesn’t help that his mother doesn’t seem to have realised how much trouble he’s in either; another delm might have twigged, for better or for worse, that there’s more to Ran Eld’s enthusiasm for this scheme than just misguided optimism. Is Ran Eld that good at deceiving her, or does she just not want to consider that her bright-eyed boy might be mixed up in something really nasty? A bit of each, perhaps.