Urgency And Strain

World Without Stars, VI.

Captain Argens tells Bren and Galmer to make precise measurements of:

gravity

air pressure

humidity

magnetism

ionization

horizon distance

rotation period

solar spectrum lines

anything else detectable

Information-gathering is as urgent as building a stockade. 

When Rorn bellyaches:

"'What do you propose to do about our troubles?' I asked sharply. A gust of wind made the thin metal walls shake around us." (p. 39)

Wind appropriately underlines dramatic dialogue.

Despite the strains, Argens and Valland hold the men together until Rorn finds a different loyalty.

Food Plant

World Without Stars, VI.

I have been back home for several hours but too busy to post. I said this morning that we would return to the food plant but we find that we have described it in detail already. See Food II. A blog search for "Food Plant" also brought up The Atmosphere Plant which links:

grass equivalents in Poul Anderson's works;

the "atmosphere plant" which is a grass equivalent on SM Stirling's Mars;

the atmosphere planet (different meaning) on ERB's Mars -

- and should also have mentioned Adolph Haertel's extraction of water from Martian vegetation and electrolysis of oxygen from the water in James Blish's Welcome To Mars. (I have just reread several chapters of this novel to find the references.)

Three versions of Mars - by Burroughs, Stirling and Blish, respectively - and one extra-solar planet by Anderson.

Now it is time for us to return to Argens, Valland and co on the "world without stars."

Some Environmental Details

World Without Stars, VI.

Day is "days" long, therefore the (very dark) night will be equally long so the men work hard to make camp.

Colours are difficult to identify in the dim light.

As usual on terrestroid planets in Poul Anderson's works, there is an equivalent of grass:

"...those tussocky growths which seemed to correspond to grass..." (p. 36)

There are no seasons because there is little axial tilt. Also:

"Photosynthesis under a red dwarf star can't use chlorophyll." (ibid.)

Scientific knowledge is crucial in sf.

Local wild life lacks certain amino acids, vitamins etc but the men eat packaged supplies, then get their food plant working. This is described in detail and we will return to it this evening when I have returned from a day trip to Blackpool. Chapter V has presented a plausible explanation of why the food plant at least had survived the wreck of the ship and its two ferries. Poul Anderson sets his characters up for several years on this planet.

Survival

World Without Stars, V.

Asked what is to be done, Hugh Valland replies:

"'We survive,'..." (p. 33)

Assessing their situation and their supplies, he judges:

"'We'll live,'..." (p. 35)

Asked whether they can get off the planet where they have crash-landed, he replies:

"'Got to.'" (ibid.)

Well, he says a little more than that:

"'Sure. Got to. Mary O'Meara's waitin' for me." (ibid.)

A more personal motivation has come into play. On our very first reading of this novel, we accept Valland's statement at face value. It is only at the very end of the novel that we question the sanity of his motivation. (We can only read for the first time once!)

Valland And Smeth

World Without Stars, V.

Valland would have made a good counsellor/clergyman for the dying. Smeth's ribs have pierced his lungs and his spine is broken. Valland asks whether he can remove Smeth's suit:

"'I've only had thirty years,' Smeth shrieked. 'Thirty miserable years! You've had three thousand!'

"'Shut up.' Valland's tone stayed soft, but I've heard less crack in a bullwhip. 'You're a man, aren't you?'

"Smeth gasped for seconds before he replied, 'Go ahead, Hugh.'" (p. 33)

Smeth asks Valland to sing and even specifies a song that is very personal to Valland and, after only a very slight hesitation, the latter complies.

What else could have been done? Smeth receives the best possible send-off in the circumstances. Valland is effortlessly good for everyone that he meets.

(The unfortunate Smeth was created - as a fictional character - only so that he could be painfully killed but authors cannot be compassionate towards their characters. Smeth's death is an important occurrence in World Without Stars.)

Hugh Valland's Competence

World Without Stars, V.

The Meteor crash lands:

"We hit." (p. 30)

When Captain Argens regains consciousness and goes to find his men, he meets Valland who:

gives him a full report on the half-flooded ship with two dead, one mortally injured and the survivors in the saloon;

suggests that the captain joins the rest while he himself looks outside before reporting back.

Definitely the kind of man that you want to have with you in a shipwreck or in any other catastrophe. He remarks:

"'I came through fairly well, myself,'..." (p. 31)

He has been coming through fairly well for three thousand years. We can bet on Valland continuing to survive for quite a while yet. 

Usually, we do not see fictional characters' deaths although James Blish felt obliged to show us his antiagathics-user meeting their ends at nothing less than the end of the universe. 

Big Spaceships

World Without Stars, III.

"We were nine aboard the Meteor, specialists whose skills overlapped. That was not many, to rattle around in so huge a hull. But you need room and privacy on a long trip, and of course as a rule we hauled a lot of cargo." (p. 17)

Spacemen need room on long trips. In other words, they need space in space. However, James Blish imagined a spaceship whose spaciousness was not welcome but overwhelming for its crew:

"The very hugeness of the Argo - a ship now manned by three people but built originally for two thousand - made her a creature of silences."

-James Blish, Mission To The Heart Stars (London, 1980), CHAPTER FIVE, p. 51.

Such a large faster-than-light ship is necessary for a sixty thousand light-years round trip for just three men. Blish conveys the eeriness of the cavernous storage areas:

"...like being cast away in a deserted ocean liner..." (p. 52)

And both authors express the difficulties of interstellar travel even at hypothetical super-light speeds.

Experience And Emergency

World Without Stars.

Quick morning post. Probably more later.

After a space jump, the Meteor is not in orbit above the ecliptic of a planetary system but falling towards a planet. The wrong coordinates have been given. Captain Argens freezes but gunner Valland, the more experienced man, shouts orders which Argens then relays to the crew. Experience and authority cooperate in an emergency as they should do. 

I wanted to record that but now must get out to the bank. I should have time to post this evening.

Poul Anderson's Wars

 

Attached is the back cover blurb of my edition of Poul Anderson's World Without Stars. It summarizes the premises and some of the plot and ends with a reference to "...a world-wide war." We remember Brian Aldiss saying that Anderson tells us a dozen ways to get to another planet but then we find the same kinds of things happening when we get there.

See:

Aldiss, Amis, Anderson, Asimov, Lewis

The crew of the Meteor become involved in the war between Pack and Herd on the planet between galaxies.

Nicholas van Rijn becomes involved in the war between Flock and Fleet on Diomedes.

The crew of the USS Benjamin Franklin become involved in the war between Vorlak and Kandemir in the local civilization-cluster.

So, yes, there was something to what Aldiss said. But Anderson's wars are better than many others. 

Accidents

World Without Stars, V.

We know that, barring accidents, we will die in our beds comparatively soon. I am 77 and a Romany palm-reader told me that I would live to 95. Of course, she might be wrong. I might have a lot less than another 18 years still ahead of me.

Felipe Argens and his crew know something very different:

"...our immortality isn't absolute, because sooner or later some chance combination of circumstances is bound to kill you." (p. 27)

They know that they will die by accident and they have no idea how soon. Their deaths are very different from ours and that makes their lives also very different from ours. 

It is the attempt to imagine what it would be like that makes Poul Anderson's accounts of his characters, Hanno, Argens, Manse Everard, Jack Havig etc, so interesting.

I will retire to Inspector Morse and then to bed.