David Falkayn to his mother:
"'...I've seen war, tyranny, conquest, upheaval, among scores of races.'" (XVI, p. 217) (my emphasis)
According to "Day of Burning," Falkayn has seen planets (plural) where there had been an all-out nuclear strike. My point here is that we will never know how many missions the trader team had that we did not read about. We read about none of their missions during the period when Coya was part of the team.
Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen has conversed with Benoni Strang by videophone, has been alone and now receives a visitor, "Martin Schuster," i.e., David Falkayn. Thus, the entire chapter is narrated from her pov. When she is alone, we read her thoughts:
"I want..." (XVII, p. 234)
- etc.
When she is with Falkayn:
"She wasn't sure how to respond to this man..." (p. 237)
Yet when he paces the room and tells her to be quiet to let him think:
"Neither of them noticed his breach of manners." (p. 238)
If neither noticed, then this sentence expresses neither pov but is a revelation, so to say, by the omniscient narrator - unless we are to understand that she realized later that neither had noticed? (I can be a stickler about povs.)
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, Falkayn's comments reminds us of how many unanswered and gaps can be found in the Technic stories.
Dang, I should have noticed that breach of etiquette by Falkayn in previous readings of MIRKHEIM.
Ad astra! Sean
If you need to think quickly about something serious, then saying "be quiet" is brusque, but not really a breach of manners in the circumstances. It would be a breach of manners to try and insist on diverting someone's attention at that point.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Hmmm, I didn't think of it like that.
Ad astra! Sean
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