The Penny Dropped

At last I understand something. At the end of Poul Anderson's and Gordon R Dickson's Earthman's Burden (New York, 1979), I thought that Alexander Jones had contradicted himself when he said both that he was preparing to travel to Earth and that he had decided against resigning his post on Toka. I asked whether, in that case, the trip to Earth was to be a holiday.

Jones goes on to say that his doubts are being resolved but then addresses another concern. A rule of the Cultural Development Service would have kept his wards, the Hokas, in "Class D" for a minimum of fifty years even though they had in every other respect qualified for upgrading at least to Class C - the object of this exercise being for them, like other intelligent species, to rise up through the Classes towards full status in the Interbeing League. Having blackmailed an inspector to waive the fifty-year rule, Jones is now preparing to take "...a Hoka delegation to Earth to apply for advancement." (p. 188)

I did read Jones' letter through to the end. However, the paragraphs about resolution of doubts separate the apparent contradiction from the explanation of the delegation. Consequently, I failed to connect the end of the letter back to its beginning.

I suspect that the letters between the stories did not appear as addenda to the individual stories when these were originally published but were instead inserted in the collection. Of the ten stories in the two collections:

two were originally published in Other Worlds Science Stories;
one in Universe Science Fiction;
five in The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction;
one in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact;
one in the first collection.

Jones' letter at the end of the first collection states that he and his delegation will travel to Earth after a baseball game and is followed by a Hokan memorandum disclosing that members of the delegation will engage in cloak and dagger activities when they arrive on Earth. Thus, the letter and the memorandum prefigure the first two stories of the second collection: baseball on Toka followed by advancement application marred by indiscreet espionage on Earth.

I must now read further to learn the outcome of the application.