What Happened Afterwards

After Poul Anderson's "Iron" and "Inconstant Star":

the Saxtorphs stayed on Wunderland;

they went into partnership with Peter Nordbo who brought needed capital and business expertise;

the main office of Saxtorph and Nordbo is high in a building with views of both Munchen and countryside;

they have agreed that Rover will avoid contact with kzinti;

the Interworld Space Commission commissions them to carry cargoes to the puppeteer tradepoint and distribute exchange goods to four human planets;

meanwhile, their ship, Freuchen, carries a Navally protected scientific expedition to Pele, where there will be kzinti contact;

Nordbo's daughter, Tyra, a professional writer, accompanies the expedition.

Because this is the Man-Kzin Wars series but not the wider Known Space series, we see Tyra encountering a kzin, not Saxtorph dealing with puppeteers.

Unusual Heavenly Bodies In The Man-Kzin Wars Series

Poul Anderson imagined unusual heavenly bodies and added three more in his Man-Kzin Wars trilogy. Each of these three works describes an expedition to an unusual astronomical object.

In "Iron," a rogue red dwarf star and its planetary system, almost as old as the universe, have gathered nebular and intergalactic matter that forms a single multiplex molecule on one planetary surface.

In "Inconstant Star," an artifact surrounding a radiating mini black is used as a weapon.

In "Pele," a star not yet fully formed has six eccentrically orbiting planets, including one inwardly spiraling super-Jovian, its atmosphere distended into a long ovoid, that will soon break up and collide with its primary.

Thus, endless cosmic imagination. Of course, man-kzin conflict happens at all three because that is the series we are in but Anderson's imagination transcends petty matters like interstellar empires!

Typing Up Loose Ends

Weoch-Captain and his crew are as good as dead on p. 290 of Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III. However, Poul Anderson's "Inconstant Star" continues until p. 310 because three loose ends need to be tied up:

(i) future history continuity;
(ii) personal relationships between our hero, his wife and the new female character;
(iii) who was the kzinti's intelligence source on Wunderland?

We will take the first one first.

(i) A prequel must not contradict later continuity. In Niven's Known Space future history, neither the kzinti nor the Earthmen acquired a tnuctipun weapon enabling them to win a decisive victory in the Man-Kzin Wars. Yet representatives of both species have discovered such a weapon in "Inconstant Star." Captain Saxtorph (human) has given Weoch-Captain (kzin) and his crew a lethal dose of radiation so it looks as if Saxtoroh's crew have sole control of the weapon. But they have not. Weoch's last defiant act is to propel the weapon with himself on it into hyperspace. The Rover crew "...saw their prize disappear." (p. 294)

That concluding phrase of Chapter XIX represents a literary tradition that is Wellsian or older. Except when alternative histories are invoked, it is a literary convention that fictional events occurred in the world as it is known to us. Thus, a Tolstoyan character can contemplate assassination of Napoleon but decides against it - and, if he did attempt it, would not succeed. The Cavorite sphere disappears into space and the Selenites kill Cavor before he can transmit the formula back to Earth. The Time Traveler does not return from his second expedition. On a more trivial level, in the 1950's, a weekly comic strip had cavemen discovering that the Moon is made of cheese, pulling it down to Earth and eating it. I said that the following installment must explain why there is a Moon today. Someone said, "Don't be stupid. It's only fiction." But, sure enough, the next installment explained how the Moon had been replaced.

That disappearing tnuctipun weapon follows in the proud footsteps of the disappearing Time Machine and Cavorite sphere.

And Another...

See here.

Robert and Dorcas Saxtorph wait to be boarded by kzinti. As they embrace, he thinks about the robot prospector which they have sent onto the surface of the tnuctipun artifact that encloses a decaying and radiating mini-black hole. Then:

"Saxtorph lurched where he stood. 'Fanden i helvede!' he roared." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 286)

What can this be but yet another sudden moment of realization? The kzinti are a mortal problem and thinking of the robot has made Saxtorph realize the appropriately destructive solution. I have read the story before but did not remember what the solution was. However, it is simple and straightforward: make the robot crash onto the artifact, thus opening another gap in its surface through which lethal radiation can pour out in the direction of the kzinti ship. The Saxtorphs disposed of kzinti by simple maneuvers in the system of the red dwarf star and the same approach will suffice here.

This kzinti crew is indeed killed but the story does not end there. Several loose ends must be tied up first.

Some Parallels

"Delta v" is a concept relevant to subliminal space travel but it crops up several times in Poul Anderson's "Inconstant Star" and I now have a layman's understanding of its meaning. See Comments here.

Poul Anderson describes "...popping in and out of hyperspace..." as "...transition between relativistic and quantum modes..." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 265) but this makes Known Space hyperspace sound like Technic History hyperspace. The latter is original: not another space but a succession of instantaneous quantum jumps within relativistic space.

In Anderson's Technic History, a Merseian says that "'...the highest end...'" is:

"'...absolute freedom for our race, to make of the galaxy what they will.'" (Young Flandry, p. 27)

- and tells his latest grandcub:

"'You shall have stars for toys...'" (p. 28)

One of Larry Niven's kzinti, written by Anderson, bares fangs at the stars and tells them:

"...we shall do with you what we will." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 261)

Merseians and kzinti are comparable to SM Stirling's Draka who say, "Glory to the Race!" but do not mean by this the entire human race and in fact succeed in making themselves a distinct species.

Dodechahedrons And Other Shapes

Let's check some more vocabulary.

"...a dome in the form of half a dodecahedron, three concentric helices bent into a semicircle, several curving dendritic masts or antennae..."
(Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 224)

"...a horizon vague with scud." (p. 213)

"She had arranged to hypothecate her half of the equity..." (p. 218)

"...sea and wrack." (p. 220)

"'...how everything aboard a ship bleshes together.'" (p. 234)

(A portmanteau of "blend" and "mesh," coined by Theodore Sturgeon, apparently.)

"...instruments on his vambrace..." (p. 238)

"...a haft of plastic riveted to the tang..." (p. 252)

"...a microtome edge." (p. 252)

"...a corner of the napery..." (p. 253) (and here)

"...cut back on a boondoggle..." (p. 265)

"'Let's throw a proper luau.'" (p. 266)

Amidst Lightnings

The passage that I am about to quote displays two features that we have found more than once in works by Poul Anderson. Regular blog readers should recognize both.

"Agony: And I am helpless, helpless.
"Revelation: No!
"Through a time beyond time, Nordbo stood amidst lightnings. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse -"
-Poul Anderson, "Inconstant Star" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), p. 251.

The most obvious feature is a Biblical reference. See here. Less obvious, but also far more frequent in Anderson's works, is a character who (i) has a problem, (ii) suddenly realizes the solution, (iii) stands thunderstruck or, in this case, "amidst lightnings," (iv) does not immediately divulge the solution - although, in this case, we need only turn the page.

Nordbo's problem is that, although the kzinti have lost their First War Against Men, he is the lone human being among a remnant kzinti crew bearing intelligence that might enable them to win the Second. When he realizes the solution, he thinks, "Revelation..." The solution is that he can kill this remnant with his concealed knife. And, appropriately, he remembers a passage from the Book of Revelation about a remnant being killed with a sword. Thus, the Biblical reference is fully integrated with the Andersonian moment of realization. That is neat, even for Anderson.

Windjammers

"'Any [kzinti Swift Hunters] that remain in service will certainly be phased out as hyperdrive comes in, because it makes them as obsolete as windjammers.'" (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 220)

The change from slower-than-light to faster-than-light in space must be like the change from sail to steam at sea. Future histories feature this change from STL to FTL. Poul Anderson's Technic History began with FTL interstellar exploration but Anderson later added an earlier story of interplanetary exploration by light sail ships. In his earlier Psychotechnic History, the STL period involves interplanetary travel and an interstellar generation ship. Heinlein's Future history had introduced the generation ship idea and showed the start of FTL travel.

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history, the transition from STL to FTL is an important part of the history. In Poul Anderson's Known Space/Man-Kzin Wars story, "Inconstant Star," an interstellar expedition departed from Alpha Centauri thirty years ago and never returned. It would have taken ten years to cross five light years and the crew, kzinti with one man, Peter Nordbo, would have been in stasis. Now an FTL ship with Peter's daughter, Tyra, in the crew will investigate. For Tyra, those thirty years are "...the dark backward and abysm of time..." (see here) but the FTL ship will cross five light years in almost no time.

"'...what are we trying on this voyage but to probe the past and learn what happened long ago?'" (p. 222)

Smoking

Attitudes and laws regarding homosexuality and smoking have reversed in my lifetime. What else can change? In the SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1979, John Varley suggested: to write futuristic sf, think of something that is now shocking, imagine that it has become commonplace, deduce its social implications and write from the viewpoint of characters living then, not from the perspective of a shocked time traveler arriving from our present.

I do not think that easy organ transplants would lead to an increase in capital punishment for minor offenses and the obsolescence of prisons as in Larry Niven's Known Space future history. Too many other social and moral factors would counteract this. In his Known Space/Man-Kzin Wars story, "Inconstant Star," Poul Anderson considers smoking. It no longer causes cancer or emphysema. However, puritanism is cyclical so the practice is again disapproved of on Earth whereas, on Wunderland, it has become a symbol from the occupation era because the kzinti disliked it and disallowed it in their presence. Meanwhile, Robert Saxtorph, from Earth but immune to puritanism, has become famous and therefore so has his pipe. These are plausible background details in a future history series.

Overlapping Trilogies III

See here.

Ulf Markham is still alive in Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's last Man-Kzin Wars story and is killed in Poul Anderson's first Man-Kzin Wars story. Therefore, all the Pournelle-Stirling stories are set before all the Anderson stories. Simple.

In "Warriors," Larry Niven introduced the kzinti, thus creating a Man-Kzin Wars period in his Known Space future history which also features several human colony planets including Wunderland in the Alpha Centauri system.

In "The Children's Hour," Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling introduced Harald's Terran Bar in Munchen on Wunderland during the kzinti occupation.

In "Iron," Poul Anderson introduced Robert and Dorcas Saxtorph who fly from Sol to Alpha Centauri to negotiate with Commissioner Markham of the Interworld Commission after the kzinti occupation.

In "Inconstant Star," Anderson introduces Tyra Nordbo who meets with Robert Saxtorph in Harald's Terran Bar.

"The Children's Hour" and "The Asteroid Queen" by Pournelle and Stirling show us Markham before he meets Saxtorph. Their "In The Hall of the Mountain King" shows us Tyra before she meets Saxtorph.

And I think I have got that right.

"'...[the kzinti] did invent the gravity polarizer.'" (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 80)

This was said before it was learned that the kzinti got all their space technology from another race. Many, though not all, of the apparent contradictions in a series can be ironed out by reflecting that most statements are made from particular points of view. In Anderson's Technic History, are the Merseians mammals? See here.

When Saxtorph visits Harald's Terran Bar, it no longer displays a "humans only" sign. Saxtorph reflects:

"Mustn't offend potential customers or, God forbid, local idealists." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 175)

Those who object to a "humans only" sign are to be disparaged as "idealists"? I would experience a certain amount of social friction if I were to meet some of Anderson's characters.

There will be more but not tonight.

Hunters And Thinkers (In The Dark)

"Darkling in this light..." (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 158)

"...the woods loomed darkling..." (Man-Kzin Wars III, p. 169)

It just means "dark" or "in the dark" and is definitely a Wellsian touch.

On Earth, some species hunt - stalk, pounce, kill and eat; one species thinks and reflects. Thus, we distinguish between hunters and thinkers. Poul Anderson's winged Ythrians and Larry Niven's feline kzinti do both.

"A hunter's wind blew...The wish that it roused, to be yonder, to stalk and pounce and slay and devour, grew in Weoch-Captain until he trembled."
-Poul Anderson, "Inconstant Star" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), pp. 167-310 AT p. 169.

His fur stands up. His claws slide out. His fingers bend. But he walks steadily to meet the kzinti High Admiral. As his partial name and rank indicate, Weoch-Captain is a rational animal able, usually, to control his instincts. Those instincts, when unrestrained, will make him run through the forest and attack his prey with claws and fangs like a tiger. Such a combination of hunter and thinker is truly alien.

Inconstant Star: Conclusion

"Inconstant Star" (see previous posts).

Another brilliant military maneuver by Robert Saxtorph destroys a kzinti spaceship and all its occupants but Weoch-Captain's dying act deprives the Saxtorphs of the mini-black hole. 

I was right about Tyra Nordbo's brother being a traitor but that was obvious. Tyra's father, Peter, has become the Saxtorph's partner so can be expected to re-appear in Anderson's third Man-Kzin Wars story, "Pele."

Ryan the Hawaiian refers to Pele and google discloses that Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.

A character in "The Asteroid Queen" by JE Pournelle and SM Stirling is called Matthieson and a street in "Inconstant Star" by Poul Anderson is called Mattiesonstrasse. It is clear that some interconnections are to be fully understood only by reading the entire sub-series although my present purpose is to continue reading works by Anderson.   

I Never Knew That

"Inconstant Star" (see previous posts).

It is possible to track a spaceship through empty space:

(i) it is known that a kzinti Swift Hunter warship started to return from the artifact surrounding a mini-black hole to Alpha Centauri but did not arrive there and almost certainly changed course towards 61 Ursae Majoris, the sun of Kzin;

(ii) it can be calculated when the ship is likely to have set off and also to have changed course;

(iii) the interstellar medium of hydrogen, helium and a few higher elements is about one proton per cubic centimeter;

(iv) screen fields deflect the medium into a smooth flow away from the ship;

(v) radio telescopes can, across several parsecs, detect the quanta emitted by excited atoms and also the long tunnel of nearly total vacuum remaining for years behind the ship;

(vi) Rover, unlike the Swift Hunter, can move through hyperspace, taking readings at different points;

(vii) the readings, interpreted by a computer program, should give an identification from which it will be possible to "...measure a parallax and obtain a fix." (p. 256)

So it is possible to follow a trail across light years through empty space. Information about mini-black holes and the interstellar medium is not specific to the Man-Kzin Wars series but is applied to that series by Poul Anderson and is recognized by readers as the kind of background material that is deployed consistently throughout his hard sf novels and series. We are in the same conceptual territory as when interstellar explorers venture through a "starfog" and a dark nebula in the concluding story of Anderson's Technic Civilization History.

Peter Nordbo's Heroism

"Inconstant Star" (see previous posts).

How does a single man untrained and unskilled in combat gain control of a kzinti warship? Quite easily. On a pre-FTL interstellar crossing, all but two of the crew are in stasis at any given time. Yiao-Captain, dissatisfied with the company of Gunner, activates his human slave and chess opponent, Peter Nordbo, for company.

Nordbo, having hidden an improvised knife, kills Gunner in a surprise attack, which leaves him only Yiao-Captain to deal with. Ideally, Gunner would have died silently but his bellow brings Yiao-Captain running. However, by flicking a table cloth bull fighter style and keeping the Captain amok, Nordbo manages to inflict enough knife wounds to kill his second kzin so that now the ship is his and the remaining kzinti can be either shot or left in stasis.

Next, Nordbo must endure forty years of solitude on recycled food, water and air: heroism indeed, but this is preferable to continued slavery which had even involved torture supervised by the supposedly friendly Yiao-Captain.

Peter Nordbo's Discovery

Anderson, Poul, "Inconstant Star" IN Niven, Larry, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), pp. 167-310.

The astronomical phenomenon discovered by Peter Nordbo is not an unusual heavenly body but an extremely powerful artifact, a gray, sixteen-kilometer-diameter sphere encrusted with a dome, concentric helices, masts or antennae and other objects and eroded for at least two billion years by interstellar meteoroids and cosmic rays but mainly by radiation from within. Thus, the artifact encloses the remnant of a heavenly body.

Immediately after the Big Bang, great forces, concentrating randomly, compressed billions of small masses into unstable black holes. Quantum tunneling made each mini-black hole emit mutually annihilating and radiating matter-antimatter particles until the stellar remnant exploded. Thus, mini-black holes, like stars, end by exploding. Tnuctipun enclosed one mini-black hole and its radiation inside a mobile sphere to be used as a weapon: opening a port released directed radiation.

In the Man-Kzin period, the mini-black hole with the mass of a small asteroid occupies less than the diameter of an atomic nucleus and will last for another 50,000 years. Because the sphere rotates on three axes, radiation from a hole torn by a large meteoroid is only temporarily detectable in any planetary system. Thus, there is a brief burst of energy ignored by many but investigated by a few.

The kzinti admiral Ress Chiuu refers to:

"'...the human government.' Perforce he attempted to pronounce the English word. Weoch-Captain recognized, if not exactly understood it." (p. 207)

Two extra-solar aliens on their own planet must use an English word because there is no corresponding concept in the Hero's Tongue. Kzinti and other alien words would also be adapted into human speech and a composite world-view would eventually emerge.

We know that the kzinti still have spies in human space. Tyra Nordbo's brother is in the Navy and tries to dissuade her from hiring the Saxtorphs to search for their father. Tyra tells the Saxtorphs that her brother:

"'...knows not well how to cope with humans.'" (p. 219)

This is sufficient evidence that he will turn out to be the traitor like Markham in the previous story.

Inconstant Star, Chapters I-III

(The NESFA Call Me Joe collection and Man-Kzin Wars IX, the latter containing Anderson's third contribution to that series, should be in the post.)

Anderson, Poul, "Inconstant Star" IN Niven, Larry, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), pp. 167-310.

This novel length story has XXII chapters of which I have now reread the first three. Of interest so far:

(i) At this early stage of human faster than light interstellar travel, the Saxtorphs own the only free enterprise hyperdrive spaceship in known space:

"...a spacecraft by herself carried awesome destructive potentialities. The commissioners were right to worry about one falling into irresponsible hands. He simply felt that the historical record showed governments as being, on the whole, much less responsible than humans." (p. 185)

Right.

(ii) When Wunderland is occupied by the kzinti, few households keep cats any more.

(iii) The first story, "Iron," had mentioned aristocrats who, after the liberation, were accused of collaboration. This second story expands on that idea.

(iv) Yet another interstellar expedition is launched to investigate yet another "'...very interesting astronomical phenomenon...'" (p. 192). In this case, "[a] mysterious source of tremendous energy..." (ibid.) has suddenly appeared a few light years away. Anderson's knowledge of astrophysics enabled him to imagine an endless succession of unusual stars, planets and planetary systems: Satan, Mirkheim, Ramnu, the fifteen billion year old red dwarf and many others. Although I have read this story once before, I have completely forgotten the nature of its "...astronomical phenomenon..." so I am rereading with considerable interest.

The aristocrat suspected of collaboration investigates out of scientific interest or monkey curiosity whereas his kzin superior hopes to gain power and earn a full name by harnessing the new energy source for military purposes, thus winning the War Against Men. As in Satan's World and Mirkheim, Anderson seamlessly blends physics with politics.

Kzin POV

Anderson, Poul, "Inconstant Star" IN Niven, Larry, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), pp. 167-310.

Not all of the Man-Kzin Wars stories written by guest authors are canonical, i.e., fully consistent with Larry Niven's Known Space future history, although I am sure that the three by Poul Anderson are because Anderson would have ensured that his contributions to the series were both authentic and consistent. I suggest that, in any new editions, the canonical and non-canonical series should be clearly labelled as such so that readers know what they are getting. A divergent series is ok if its installments are individually worth reading but it is not part of the original narrative. (We read about Germany winning World War II in alternative history fiction but not in history text books.)

Anderson's first Man-Kzin War story, "Iron," contains far more than we might expect from such a work, as I tried to show in recent posts, but does not include a kzinti point of view. However, this is more than compensated for by Chapter I of Anderson's second contribution to the series, "Inconstant Star." That entire Chapter is set on Kzin. Anderson characteristically lists sights, sounds and odors as Weoch-Captain, who has earned half a name, goes to visit Ress-Chiuu, High Admiral of Kzin, who possesses both a full name and a "...vast domain..." (p. 169), including a game preserve where a kzin can "'...make a bare-hand kill.'" (p. 173)

We remember Anderson's Ythrians, intelligent winged carnivores, and his Merseians, also descended from hunters. Ress-Chiuu sounds like a Merseian when he says:

"'We go straight to the spoor, then.'" (p. 171)

and:

"'We require an officer...capable of agreeing that the destiny of the race transcends his own...'" (p. 172)

- although I thought that the kzinti focused more on immediate grievances and casus belli than on racial destiny?

To their human antagonists, Merseians are "greenskins" and "gatortails" whereas kzinti are "ratcats."

We soon learn that "Inconstant Star" is a direct sequel to "Iron" because Ress-Chiu discloses the disastrous outcome of "'...Werlith-Commandant's mission on the opposite side of human-hegemony space." (p. 171)

Kzinti led by Werlith established a military base in what they had thought was an obscure planetary system. However, a human expedition was drawn to that very system for purposes of cosmic exploration and pure science, motivations disparaged by the kzinti as "Monkey-curiosity..." (ibid.). The military acumen of Robert and Dorcas Saxtorph enabled them to destroy first the single kzinti warship in the system and secondly the ground base. Weoch must go to investigate and to retrieve any survivors or to kill them if they cannot be rescued from captivity.

We know from Niven's texts that Kzin is a Patriarchy ruled by a single Patriarch - Mad Kdapt-Preacher was killed by the Patriarch in single combat. However, in this story, Weoch refers to the planetary ruling group as "'...the Patriarchs...'" (p. 172).

Man-Kzin Wars

As far as I can see, Poul Anderson wrote three stories set during the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history:

"Iron" (1988);
"Inconstant Star" (1990);
"Pele" (2002) -

- and I have the first two. Further, these two were combined as a single collection called Inconstant Star in 1991. I now think that this is why I had thought that Anderson had novelized one of his Man-Kzin Wars stories.

"Iron" is 149 pages in Niven, Larry, Ed., The Man-Kzin Wars (London, 1989). "Inconstant Star" is 142 pages in Niven, Larry, Ed. Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990). I think that their lengths make them novels. Both feature a character called Robert Saxtorph. Authors who contribute to another author's series tend to create sub-series within it.

Niven's Known Space future history and Anderson's Technic Civilization future history have in common:

spaceships with faster than light hyperdrives;
a hostile tailed species, feline kzinti and green Merseians, respectively.

I have read "Iron" and "Inconstant Star" maybe once when they were first published so it makes sense to reread them and also to track down "Pele" which is in Man-Kzin Wars IX.