Over seven hundred years ago, a group of Asians in a few spaceships colonized the cold desert planet, Altai, which is in the Betelgeusean region of the galaxy and a great distance from the Solar System. Since then, there has been no contact between Altai and the rest of humanity. However, through the Terran Embassy on Alfzar, the main planet in the Betelgeusean system, Terran Intelligence learns that Alfzarian traders report strange happenings on a human planet called Altai. Archives confirm the existence of this colony and Intelligence sends Flandry to investigate. He travels from Terra to Alfzar, then from there to Altai as a passenger in an Alfzarian trader ship.
The Terran Empire is no longer expanding. Its merchants avoid the Betelgeusean region because it is so far from home, because Betelgeusean traders, close to their home base, are able to compete more effectively and also because the region is too close to the hostile Merseian Roidhunate. In fact, Altai is in a vulnerable position and the Empire must make some effort to incorporate this previously independent colony. However, the Empire's only resource for this purpose is Dominic Flandry, soon to be trapped on the planet's surface.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
However angry or frustrated Flandry sometimes felt at what he believed his people's too minimal efforts at resisting Merseia, the fact someone like him was sent to investigate Altai shows some effort was being made! And Fladnry wsa very, very good at thwarting Merseian schemes and plots.
When the late, unlamented USSR was still aggressively probing at the US and its allies during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev, there must have been times when the US or UK Intelligence services foiled similar Soviet maneuvers. And I certainly hope they are doing the same to mainland China's own intrigues.
Ad astra! Sean
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