Flying Away From Babur

Mirkheim, VI.

There are two reasons not to go into hyperdrive too deep inside a planetary system:

there is a greater probability that a quantum jump will bring part of the spaceship into the same volume of space as a meteor, thus damaging the ship;

curved space interferes with finely tuned oscillators.

Later in the Technic History, Dominic Flandry's private ship, Hooligan, is finely tuned enough to go hyper within the Solar System, then to travel from Jovian orbit to Earth in minutes, but surely such a transit would increase the first risk?

Because time crawls before Muddlin' Through can go hyper and escape pursuit, Falkayn remembers. His memories include:

"...the splendor of an Ythrian on the wing..." (p. 109)

As with the earlier reference to a Merseian, this is the first mention of an Ythrian in the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy although, if we read Poul Anderson's Technic History in this order, then we will very soon encounter the two Ythrian volumes, The People Of The Wind and The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Andrea and I watched an episode of Star Trek: Picard and, of course, I thought about how good the Technic History would look on screen.