"Kyrie"

Poul Anderson, "Kyrie" IN Anderson, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002), pp. 344-354.

There is a reason why I have returned to this story which will become apparent. 

The author's introduction informs us that the story involves:

the physics of black holes;

FTL by hyperspatial jumps;

an intelligent plasma vortex;

interstellar telepathy.

Anderson adds that the story needed these particular elements. My problem is that hyperspatial jumps and telepathy have become cliches and therefore work against originality in speculative fiction. Hyperspatial jumps are familiar and are different from the genuinely original quantum hyperdrive in Anderson's Technic History.

Anderson borrowed the Order of St. Martha of Bethany from Anthony Boucher. The Galilean Order is another fictional Catholic religious order which, like the quantum hyperdrive, appears in the Technic History.

A Catholic priest said that how many orders of nuns there are is supposed to be one of the things that even God doesn't know. He added that it had been suggested that they be amalgamated, then re-divided into three:

Faith, the ones that pray;

Hope, the ones that teach;

Charity, the ones that do good works.

Googling discloses that there are Anglican orders called:

the Society of the Sisters of Bethany;

the Order of the Companions of Mary and Martha.

And I will have to return to my original point in a subsequent post.