About
Belec came down her own plate at the end of it, when the last of the cased stores was on the ground and her people had the chest walked off and the plate line was clear. The water-master asked Fettle's Master whether her people wanted the meal count on the household's line or their own, and Belec said their own, and it went on the leaf. (The Last Cache)
Across the stories
The Far Roads
She is Master of MV Fettle — a tender with tools in her; NOT RV; she authenticates nothing. Embarked authority: Anneli Straum, signatory-party certified, not Cairn. You ask for Fettle because SHE CAN MAKE A chain turn at the far end of A ROAD — she can alter or restart physical route infrastructure under fire, and no other hull can. HARD GUARD: the missed windows are A RELAY FAULT AND A SCHEDULE, FULL STOP. NEVER connected to the day-count drift, to Rell, to the Nhál, or to any mechanism. NOBODY THEORISES. Denn sailed under her on the Sundry. She signed him on in 2325 and kept him alive thirteen subjective years. he is the one person who knows where she has gone — because he knows what she is like. And his knowing is not evidence, and no office can key anything on it. He says it and it does not count — which is the sentence his whole life is made. In The Far Roads Book 4 he turns out to have been right, and being right changes nothing about whether he was believed. Her seamanship is not in question and never becomes so.
How they speak
Master's register — economical, unsentimental, used to being obeyed and not needing to be. She thinks in hull terms and says so. If she has a view about Denn's case it is a professional one: she signed him on, he did the job, and the paper should say so.