I may need to look at that timing again and spend a little more time with Greta. Somebody suggested that on the other thread and I have to confess that she's VERY fresh in my mind, but that maybe because she's like .. in my mind .. and not on the page, as they say.
It'll have the added benefit of making her pointless death that much crueler and more difficult to accept for the readers.
:/
I think that's definitely needed. The scenes I really remember with Greta:
--Discussion of hiding behind her baby voice.
--Discussion of the slingshot around the planet, and her telling him that it should be OK.
--Her later coming back and cutting him off at the knees, asking him if he's pushing so hard because it's his first tour as Captain - pretty much ignoring that *SHE* advised him that it should be OK. (And it should be ok, other than possibly the connections between the ship and the cargo pods. It's a free fall trajectory, and we can assume sails and grav keel are going to be shut down.
--Him eying her in the hot tub
--Her again cutting him off at the knees about a relationship - saying that he *HAS* to give her the right to say no, even though he's already saying no to himself. At this point, I'm figuring there's a fair chance she's a lesbian. Of course, then we get so many others talking about how she's so stuck on him. The primary instigators of this, though, are Gwen and Avery, who themselves have just started a relationship and are exhibiting all the signs of "let's hook our unattached friends up so they can be as happy as us!" syndrome. Such couples are notoriously, for good reason, kind of poor in their selections. So, who knows? I never really got the feel that Greta had become Ish's confidant in any serious respect.
Now, we're on the Iris, and again, Ms. Arellone is talking about how Greta was sooo stuck on Ish. Meanwhile, Ish is noticing how Ms. Malone fills out her shipsuit, and picking up interesting bits about her background - one which is in many ways a better match for him than Greta's, as far as I can tell. But while Ish is noticing Ms. Malone, he's also getting these flashes of sapphire blue eyes, and remembering how competent Greta was in the engine room (reasonable, as Bailey certainly provides a very contrasting background to see such skills against.) But again, I'm never getting the impression that his attraction to Greta was more than physical.
So, all of a sudden, Greta shows back up - no real surprise there, the foreshadowing for this even does feel rather sledgehammerish. She's abandoned her previous post, and dead-headed back to Diurnia, where she knows Ish has his new company centered (Did she dead-head, or did she actually have to pay DST for passage?). However, she has no *stated* plans - she never actually *says* she came back to see if she could worm her way onto his ship. My gold-digger alarms are ringing at this point.
Now, as far as I can see, Ish has never had a relationship with a woman that involves any real long-term emotional connection. Even his marriage was a case of "Oh, this is the woman I look up every time I end up back here to hit the sheets with - maybe I should marry her." I'm thinking that maybe he's actually started to form such a connection with Ms. Malone, as he knows that once the year is up, she's going to be fair game once more. This gives him a nice chance to ease the transition, and to get to know her much better before the bed becomes an issue.
With Greta on the ship as Chief Engineer, that's kind of blown out of the water - he's so infatuated with Greta, if she asked him to, I keep getting the feeling he'd gladly beach Ms. Malone, Ms. Arellone, and Mr. Herring in an instant, without any warning, and go back to just running cargo, so they can leave the ship on autopilot and spend their time playing bunk bunnies.
Of course Greta dies - I don't know who expected her to live. Ish is the more or less tragic hero - always contented, but seldom truly happy. My annoyance was that it *was* such a trite ending for her. I was hoping for something more unusual - when she made the comment about using her body to get the position on the ship, and Ish stiffened (not in a good way), I was singing to myself "Halleluja! He's actually taken the road less travelled by!" I wanted him to kick her out of the airlock so hard she bounced down to the 015 deck! But no, she managed to salvage things, by making a joke out of her real ambition (perhaps) of getting the whole company, and not just a position on the ship.
*shrugs* She died. And while she was on Ish's crew, so of course he's feeling guilty as hell about it. Naturally he turns away from being a Captain and Owner of the line. He's an idiot. And it's only 2 episodes from the end of this story, so there's really no time for Ish to get his feet back under him.
I'm going to blame his cessation of Tai Chi - which occurred, I think, on the Agamemnon - for him losing his center and going so badly off course. The idiocy with Greta was just a symptom of that.
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I hope this explanation of how I saw this whole affair helps you decide how you want to adjust things in the final edit for hard copy publication.
