"Imagine, my lords." (p. 97)
The first person narrator addresses his "lords." We wonder whether we will see these lords before the story ends. We do not but by then we have forgotten about them - but their mere presence at this stage tells us something about the kind of society that is involved here. These mariners are not on Earth:
they had "...sailed from Lavre Town..." (ibid.);
they seek "'...the Aureate Cities...'" (ibid.);
they steer by an "...ogre planet..." (ibid.) that ascends as they sail west;
they hear sea monsters breaching at night;
the ogre planet is called "Tambur" (p. 98) -
- and so on.
Of course, it turns out that this human population has "'...Fall[en] From Heaven.'" (p. 102) This means that they are descendants of extra-planetary space travellers but have lost the secret of space travel. What will they find when sailing west and will they re-establish contact with "Heaven"? Poul Anderson knows exactly where he is going with this narrative but we must read on to find out.
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