David And Coya At The Winged Cross

Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291 AT Prologue, Y minus 8, pp. 11-18.

This Prologue is divided into nine sections, beginning with Y minus 500,000 and ending with Y minus 1. Y is:

"...the year which God, or destiny, or chance had ordained." (p. 30)

Y minus 8, the only section set on Earth, begins when Chicago Integrate, viewed by David and Coya Falkayn through the activated transparency in Nicholas van Rijn's penthouse on the roof of the Winged Cross, is described as "...a godland of..." (p. 11):

spires

towers

mulitcoloured walls

crystalline vitryl

gracefully curving trafficways

flickering emblems

stretches of trees and green

glitttering movement in the sky, on the lake and on the ground

We now learn first that David and Coya have married and secondly that Coya has visited the Winged Cross since infancy whereas David, of course, has mostly lived off Earth. Coya is about to join van Rijn's trade pioneer crew led by David although her time with the crew is one of the great Untold Series of the Technic History.