On Our Way

"We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way.

-Le Matelot."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION HIDING PLACE IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, December 2009), pp. 555-556 AT p. 556.

"Where would an Okie go? They were going, that was all. If there was a destination, no one could know what it was."

-reference here.

The first book publication of "Hiding Place" was in Trader To The Stars, a collection of three stories about Nicholas van Rijn, a Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League. The first book publication of the quoted James Blish story was in Earthman, Come Home, a collection of three Okie stories and one post-Okie story. Okies are itinerant interstellar workers. Their role is similar to that of the Polesotechnic League.

Trader To The Stars was Volume I of Poul Anderson's Technic History. As such, it is superseded by The Van Rijn Method which is Volume I of The Technic Civilization Saga. Earthman, Come Home became Volume III of Cities In Flight because Blish added a pre-Okie prequel, a post-Okie sequel and an Okie juvenile novel. (Future history series are complicated.)

By reading the Technic History and Cities In Flight in their entireties, we learn where the League and the Okies were going.