Tuesday 18 November 2014

Chee Lan In Flight

The Cynthian, Chee Lan, dog-sized, bushy tailed and white furred except for a blue mask effect around the eyes, flies, wearing gravity harness, tool kit, stunner, blaster and black mantle, the last for concealment when keeping a secret night-time rendezvous.

Mask, mantle, flight, weapons and secrecy: she is a super-heroine or, at least, could have been presented as such. On Merseia, she sees fields, villages and castles. Has feudalism survived into industrialism? In any case, there is a colorful combination of the archaic with the futuristic.

Chee Lan enters the house to which she has been directed and says to the Merseian who admits her:

"'...lead me to thine acher.'"
-Poul Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (New York, 2010), p. 229.

What is an acher? Google is not helping me with this word. Nor do I remember noticing it on any previous reading of "Day of Burning." How much do we miss when reading a text?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think this means the person who aches, the Merseian who has a problem, and wants to see the Polesotechnic visitors about it.

Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen

Paul Shackley said...

Nicholas,
Thank you. It is still a very odd word, though!
Paul.