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Efraim, on Delgado[]

Delgado is one of the Terran planets. It’s located “in the Delgado System.” [1]

City: Efraim. The University in Efraim has been called "the intellectual heart of the planet"[2]

Delgado is a “Safe World”, barring dangerous, unusual, or abnormal behavior. [1] [3] More about this at Delgado main page.

Delgado citizens - or at least citizens of Efraim — enjoy a strongly matriarchal society.[4]

#12 Leafydale Place[]

Delgado Twelve Leafydale Place

Kamele lives with Jen Sar and Theo in a house with a garden, and a black-and-white cat named Mandrin[1] (until Theo goes to live at the Faculty Residence Wall with Kamele and her cat Coyster. Then, later, Theo went offworld to Anlingdin Piloting Academy on Eylot (see Liaden Worlds).

Address: Number 12, Leafydale Place, Greensward-by-Efraim, Delgado[1]

Blue-Eyed Blond[]

Kamele has bright blue eyes and fair hair.[2] She is only a little taller than Scholar Jen Sar Kiladi / Daav yos'Phelium [5]

Her Birth & Kin[]

Kamele was born c. 1342 on Delgado— making her 40 when Korval initiated Plan B (Korval’s strategy)

  • She has no sisters[6] but her dearest friend is scholar Ella ben Suzan
  • Her mother left Delgado shortly after Theo's birth, moving to Serpentine to take up directorship of a moribund diaspora studies program.
  • Her mother and grandmothers were also professors[2]
  • Kamele is the mother of Theo Waitley -- she was 30 at time of Theo's birth
  • Jen Sar Kiladi is Theo’s father.
“Jen Sar had been her mother's onagrata for as long as Theo could remember"[1]

Her scholarship[]

  • The University is in the city of Efraim, on Delgado. The university has faculty residences at the Wall, with a watchful serpent -- an AI, possibly? (probably not one of the outlawed Independent Logics)
"leave for the Wall before Night opens its Eyes"[1]
"Night Eyes open at tenbell." ....."Surely the monitors would not consider someone quietly sitting and looking at the sky a danger?"[5]
  • Kamele is a professor in the EdHist (History of Education) Department.[7]
"full professor and junior administrator" -- in "the hardly exciting specialty of the history of education" (as Theo put it)
  • She investigated when things went foul in EdHist, and esteemed Professor Flandin was disbarred for falsifying data.[7]
  • Now, years later, she's tenured...and bored:
"My place in the department is largely administrative now. I teach the senior seminar, but every semester, I have to fight harder to keep it. The chancellor’s office would rather have me in budget negotiations, which is a dead bore, as even Ella admits."[8]

Other Interests[]

Kamele sings in the choir on Delgado.

"I am a member of a chorale," she said, speaking carefully. "Recreational only, of course. My studies are my life's work."[5]

Lately, on Surebleak, she is practicing target shooting[9]

To Surebleak[]

Surebleak is as different from Delgado as possible. It certainly is not a safe world.

  • Kamele traveled aboard the cruise ship Hoselteen bound for Surebleak because she thought Korval had kidnapped Jen Sar Kiladi / Daav yos'Phelium
  • While en route, she was "befriended" by a covert agent, Ban Del ser'Lindri (probably from The Department of the Interior). When she realized he was dangerous -- and espied his four watchful friends -- she skeedadled, stage left[10]
    • leaving behind her suitcase and computer, she jumped ship when Hoselteen was docked at Yonimiko-Chan station, [11]and hired onto the Judy as working crew, bound for Surebleak.[12]
  • Arrived at Jelaza Kazone, greeted by Val Con yos'Phelium, baby Talizea yos'Phelium, and Miri Robertson Tiazan. They invited her to stay at the Clanhouse, at least until Daav returned from convalescence [12]
  • Learned that her husband had another identity entirely...is still learning about that[12]

On Surebleak[]

Kamele studies the Liaden Language, the high tongue and the low or kin tongue, from Lady Kareen yos'Phelium [13] and, in turn, helps Kareen develop her conversational Terran. [14] She is also learning to shoot a gun, [9] quite accurately. [15]

Excerpt Dragon in Exile, Kareen’s Landau

Dragon in Exile, excerpt

She is adding her own expertise to the Surebleak Culture Study, led by Lady Kareen:

"One day, she had been a guest in Clan Korval’s house at the end of the Port Road. Two days later, she and Kareen were housemates, and partners in research. Kareen had insisted that they were, in fact, cohabitants; that Kamele was neither a guest, nor a dependent, but her equal: a colleague."[9]

She lives at Kareen’s townhouse on Dudley Avenue and Farley Lane[9] which is in Penn Kalhoon’s territory [16]

"I merely wished to inform you, Kamele Waitley has become part of my household. She is one of the company which is piecing together Surebleak’s history and mores, so that a new common code may be crafted which will guide both the native population and the Liaden immigrants.”

“Kamele is on Surebleak?” Daav repeated.

“How does she go on?” Aelliana asked.

“Kamele is indeed on Surebleak and if I may say so, she blooms.”[17]

Planning to Stay[]

Surebleak’s civic leaders (read "bosses") have asked her to direct a secondary school system:

"This project of Kareen’s is fascinating! Of course, I don’t have a specialty in social engineering, but even I can see the intricacies -- almost exactly like a mosaic! I could be...content going on just as I have been, these last few months. But lately, I’ve been talking with the civic leaders, and they -- they want a secondary school system on Surebleak."[8]

Aelliana Caylon /Daaneka tey’Doshi suggested she also start a university with Delgado:

of course, you will wish to use your expertise to build Surebleak an educational system.  Surebleak, though, is short of funds, and likewise short of scholars trained in the traditional way.  How if you allowed Delgado to participate in the project?  Would not a satellite school on a planet which is poised to enter the universal conversation increase Admin's melant'i, and the whole worth of the university?" [18]

Excerpts[]

She liked the culture of the house, which was an amalgam of Liaden, Delgadan, Yxtrang, and native Surebleakean. Sometimes the house ambiance reminded Kamele of graduate dorm common rooms....if all the house’s residents could find a balancing point among their considerable differences, surely they could find a similar point, for Surebleak, in whole. She laughed, softly. Well, surely they could. But it was still going to be what Dilly dignified as a job of work. [9]

_______

Kamele had not won her point on the subject of the gun. Gert insisted, Kareen insisted, Scout vey’Loffit insisted, Mike Golden insisted . . . that she carry a gun. When she protested that it was absurd for her to do so, since she hadn’t the first idea how to use a gun, Kareen had simply said, “That is why you will have shooting lessons.”

And so she had shooting lessons, every morning, walking out in weather Dilly claimed was “summery,” to Veedle Street, and Sherman’s Shoot-Out. Kareen, and Amiz, of course, often accompanied her on these outings. In fact, they had become something of a favorite with the proprietor, “the guy who put the Sherman in Shoot-Out,” as he had it.

The four of them would practice for an hour, and Kamele, to her amazement, gained skill with her weapon, and, just a little, pride in her own competence.[9]

_______

“I just thought, if the timing meshed, we could take you back,” Theo said. “That would keep you out of the orbit of people who are trying to kidnap you in order to get at me.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Kamele said. “But, you know, I may not go back to Delgado.”

Possibly, Theo thought, the universe phased just then.[8]


References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Fledgling, chapter 1
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Fledgling, chapter 2
  3. Fledgling, chapter 5
  4. Neogenesis: Surebleak
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 Fledgling chapter 7
  6. Ghost Ship ch 28
  7. 7.0 7.1 Fledgling, chapter 3
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 Neogenesis: Surebleak / chapter 49 Audible
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Dragon in Exile, chapter 17
  10. Dragon Ship, chapters 31 and 36
  11. Dragon Ship, chapters 36
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 Dragon Ship, epilogue
  13. Dragon in Exile, chapter 1
  14. Dragon in Exile, chapter 10
  15. Dragon in Exile, chapter 39: Sherman's Shootout Novice Round
  16. Dragon in Exile, ch 21
  17. Neogenesis
  18. Opportunity to Seize, originally titled Dudley Avenue and Farley Lane in the chapbook Fortune’s Favors; reprinted in A Liaden Universe Constellation Volume 5
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