Awareness Of An Environment

"Kings Who Die."

Poul Anderson frequently appeals to at least three of the senses in descriptive passages so what does he do here?

"[Diaz's] mind was sharply aware of its environment -" (p. 20)

- and that environment is:

"...muscle play beneath his skin,..." (bodily sensation);

"...pastel bulkheads and cold fluorescence,..." (light and colour);

"...faint machine-quiver underfoot,..." (something partly felt and partly heard?);

"...gusts from ventilator grilles,..." (felt on the skin);

"...odors of foreign cooking..." (smell);

"...and always the men, with alien faces and carefully expressionless voices..." (sight and sound).

Careful rereading shows that only taste is lacking.

Angels And Devils?

"Kings Who Die."

That fanciful back cover blurb reads:

Angels Above, Devils Below...

Since the first human stood upright the stars have been a source of wonderment and inspiration. All our heavens have been placed in...the heavens, our hells in the depths of the earth. Angels above, devils below. Mankind between. 

But perhaps heaven isn't so heavenly. Perhaps those who live there are as self-interested and violence-prone as any earthbound mortal. And even if they're not, we will be there soon.

Cause enough for

CONFLICT

A Tom Doherty Associates Book

Who wrote this? By defining a theme and explaining the title, it serves the purpose of Poul Anderson's own Introductions to several of his other collections. 

The casual assumption that any earthbound mortal is violence-prone is a tired cliche. An extraterrestrial who was given the impression that my excursions into town are punctuated by routine acts of violence against other pedestrians and of rage against the drivers of motor vehicles or that I would return home to find that my property had been vandalized by my neighbours would have been seriously misinformed.

Most of the stories collected here are about intra-species conflicts.

I had set out to post about a passage in "Kings Who Die" but was distracted when I found this image of the back cover of my edition of Conflicts. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Emotional Control

"Kings Who Die."

"Emotional control, drilled into [Diaz] at the Academy and practiced at every refresher course, took over. It was essentially psychosomatic, a matter of using conditioned reflexes to bring muscles and nerves and glands back toward normal. If the fear symptoms, tension, tachycardia, sweat, decreased salivation, and the rest, were alleviated, then fear itself was." (p. 19)

But we all need that, not just Astromilitary Corpsmen with the benefit of a "satorist" trainer! 

Zazen practice is "Neither trying to think nor trying not to think, just sitting with no deliberate thought..." Thus, it is not a psychosomatic technique for controlling muscles, nerves, glands or emotions. Dogen wrote:

"The means of training are thousandfold but pure meditation must be done."

-Rules for Meditation. 

Zazen is "pure meditation" whereas Diaz's emotional control would be one of the thousandfold means of training. I sometimes wonder whether one of those means might be helpful although not as an alternative to zazen.

I also find just about everything to discuss in works by Poul Anderson.

Treated Like Kings

"Kings Who Die."

The previous post focused on a future transport system and this theme continues in Poul Anderson's text:

"'We can catch the transpolar shuttle to Paris if we hurry.'" (p. 17)

However, the main thrust of this passage is a set of social relationships. 

First, there are unpublicized parleys between the US Astromilitary Corps and their enemies. For example, when Bailey visits Asia to return a borrowed craterbug and to give them some alga-blight antibiotic:

"'They poured me full of excellent vodka.'" (p. 15)

Secondly, and even more importantly, is the way that the Corps is regarded at home:

"'The Corps can do no wrong.'" (ibid.)

When Bailey switches off an "Ugga-wugga-wugga, hugga-hugga me, do!" (p. 16) juke box to satisfy his companion, a large tourist gets heavy until Bailey shows his ID bracelet and introduces himself:

"'First Lieutenant Carl H. Bailey, United States Astromilitary Corps, at your service,' he said..." (p. 17)

Silence spreads. The tourist apologizes and buys drinks. Others buy. The spacemen are given privacy but receive smiles and waves. The proprietor, who had welcomed Diaz and had backed him against the tourist, has phoned his family and friends who arrive with castanets, guitar and more bottles. The fiesta continues until dawn.

Corps prestige has developed exponentially... They are the kings who die.

This has been a flashback. We return to Diaz in space and to something else across the Milky Way:

"Another jet splashed fire across the Milky Way." (ibid.)

Giro

 

"Kings Who Die." 

After mentioning aircars, we find a different means of transport:

two spacemen, Diaz and Bailey, catch a giro outside their hotel;

Diaz punches the name of a cantina;

the autopilot searches its directory and swings the cab onto a skyrail;

the great view through the bubble comprises blazing city, glowing ocean and full moon with a glittering Unasian (United Asian) (enemy) base;

the giro descends to the street and rolls three blocks to the cantina whose interior is then described vividly.

A one-off story but a densely realized Andersonian future.

Aircars

See:

What Elon Musk Said 

SpaceX

In many of Poul Anderson's fictional futures, it is simply taken for granted that cars fly instead of moving along roads. Indeed, the occasional ground vehicle can come as a surprise. 

Three quarters of an an hour ago, I stopped blogging to watch the TV news where I found Elon Musk demonstrating a flying car although it looked like a momentary stunt and was not yet safe enough to carry anyone inside it. Still, if the news is relevant, it can be relayed here.

It is the commitment of this blog to promote Poul Anderson, not Elon Musk, but the latter has generated some relevant publicity recently. And it is time for me to return to reading Alan Moore. Good night. (At least it is night here.)

Aurora

"Kings Who Die."

We are focusing on details and not getting to the heart of the story yet but give us time. A weekend stretches ahead.

"A few years ago [Diaz]'d spent a furlough at Antarctic Lodge. He and some girl had taken a snowcat out to watch the aurora, thinking it would make a romantic background. But when they saw the sky, they forgot about each other for a long time. There was only the aurora." (p. 12)

For the Northern Lights in Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time and in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, see:

 The Winter Hunters

And on a personal note:

It is sometimes reported that the Northern Lights are or will be visible in Britain, even in places to the south of us here in the North West of England. One night, my daughter, Aileen, and I drove to Morecambe Bay; on another occasion to a hill inland but both times saw nothing. When I told her the story of people being carried away by the Northern Lights, she suggested that this might have a basis in reality. Some people, fascinated by the lights above their heads, might have wandered too far for safety in the dark...

The Satorist

Poul Anderson, "Kings Who Die" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 11-40.

(Nearly finished for this evening.)

See War, Wells And Anderson. 

An unexpected word:

"[Diaz] drew a breath which was a good deal shakier than the Academy satorist would have approved of." (p. 11)

"Satorist" is to be found neither online nor in any earlier posts on this blog. Obviously it is a noun derived from the noun, "satori." The latter term is familiar especially since I practice zazen. The Japanese connection is confirmed in the immediately following sentence when Diaz imagines the satorist speaking:

"('If your nerves twitch, cadet-san, then you know yourself alive and they need not twitch. Correct?' To hell with that, except as a technique.)" (ibid.)

Since Diaz, who murmurs, "'Nombre de Dios,' (p. 12) and crosses himself but is trained by a "satorist," is at war with Unasians, this story is set in a period of cultural interaction and conflict. But  how much deeper will we dig into this evening? Only time will tell.

The Moral Of The Story

"Details," 5.

"'...nationalism and atomic energy had become contemporaneous...'" (p. 140)

The worst possible outcome.

(There is an Isaac Asimov story in which atomic energy and local interplanetary space travel have been discovered/initiated contemporaneously. These two discoveries should qualify Earth for Galactic Federation membership. However, when a bureaucrat learns that atomic bomb tests are being conducted within the planetary atmosphere, an application form goes not into the mail but into the wastepaper basket... This story is called "Silly Asses!" and is in one of his later collections.)

The moral of "Details":

"'Psychodynamics is not an exact science.'" (p. 139)

Asimov created the Mule, an unpredictable individual mentally powerful mutant, in order to throw Seldon's psychohistorical Plan off-track but this was unnecessary. The entire human population comprises unpredictable individuals. Asimov's premise was that a Galactic population would grow large enough to become mathematically predictable, comparing individually unpredictable human beings to individually unpredictable particles which become statistically predictable en masse. However, increasing the numbers, and thus multiplying their interactions, increases the unpredictability.

To continue with the moral of "Details":

"'...human nature is so complicated that we'll never have a complete science of it.'" (p. 140)

To paraphrase rather than to quote:

only broad trends can be mathematically predicted;

trends comprise millions of individuals and incidents;

an artist knows when to supplement equations with intuition and common sense;

only a technician who is also a poet can write a report that is not only quantitatively accurate but also qualitatively alive, conveying the feel of events.

This is overstated. A researcher must have something of the artist and the poet, not be either of them.

I did not think that this story had this much in it.

The Plan This Time

"Details," 4.

There will be a war in Europe and another in the Pacific but these must be kept separate with Russia neutral. "'...Germany alone cannot conquer Britain...'" (p. 137) so there will be a European stalemate during which Britain can help the US to defeat Japan. Then the Galactics will goad Germany and Russia into a war that will weaken them both until the US, armed from its war against Japan, can intervene and break them both.

Three Wars, None Of Them A World War

Germany v. Britain

US v. Japan

Germany v. Russia (then v. US)

Tombak, the agent in the field, thinks:

Roosevelt will not let Britain fight alone and will be able to swing his country behind him;

the Nazis are "...entirely capable of attacking Russia..." (p. 137);

that would mean the US aiding the Soviet Union and the latter ending the War as a world power...

A hobo says that the US:

"'Ought to have a guy like Hitler...'" (ibid.)

Tombak, posing as a hobo, replies sharply as is always necessary to such comments. Then he wonders what the embittered geniuses expelled from Europe will do if anyone gathers them together. How will that affect the Plan?

Turning the page, we read:

"'No!'

"'Yes... They're making an atomic bomb!'" (5., p. 138)

Terrestrial perversity counteracts extraterrestrial interventions. Is this good or bad?