What Happened Next?

We, editorially speaking, recently reread Satan's World and "Lodestar," albeit in reverse order. These two works feature the already established characters, Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan. In addition, "Lodestar" introduces van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya Conyon. What happens to these five characters next? At the end of "Lodestar," Coya seems to have become close to Falkayn so we can at this stage infer, or guess at, certain further developments - unless, of course, some later installment contradicts any such inferences or speculations. All five characters reappear in, and only in, Mirkheim. "Wingless" and The People Of The Wind reveal more not about Falkayn himself but about what he did after the events of Mirkheim.

Mirkheim, Prologue, Y minus 18, recapitulates Captain David Falkayn's discovery of the planet that he named Mirkheim. However, this happened during the narrative of "Lodestar" so we are not as yet being told anything that happened next. 

In Y minus 9, David and Coya have married, Coya is about to join van Rijn's trader team of David, Adzel and Chee Lan and van Rijn is giving the Falkayns a farewell dinner in his penthouse on the roof of the Winged Cross in Chicago Integrate which we, the readers, have seen twice before. Thus, this section of the long and elaborate Prologue is rich in information about what happened next. In fact, it also informs us of changes in the Commonwealth and the League that are unwelcome to van Rijn. The continual message of Anderson's Technic History and of his Time Patrol series is that things change.

For more information about these particular characters, we must turn to Chapter I, which we will do tomorrow.