A Telling Point

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

A frivolous story can make a serious point. The premier and his wife are relieved when their kidnapped daughter is returned unharmed. They have been through hell. But then Wing Alak asks the premier:

"'Have you ever thought how many millions of mothers this holy war of yours would have left without any prospect of getting their children back?'" (p. 173)

He explains:

"'...I had to think of the whole Galaxy, not Luan. Sometimes someone must suffer a little lest someone else suffer a lot more.'" (p. 176)

That is Alak's motivation and everything that he has done suddenly appears in a different light.

Wrong And Right

 

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

Galactic League Patrol agents act wrongly in every conventional sense. They deceive, thwart, seduce or betray their clients/victims. However, it also turns out that this is how the Patrol saves lives and keep the peace. It is all one big act and joke.

As has been pointed out in the combox, bluffs can be called:

Robert Heinlein's Future History includes a volume in which, although technology has progressed, society has regressed;

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series includes an installment in which Seldon's psychohistorical predictions are wrong;

James Blish's Okie series includes an installment in which the germanium-backed Oc dollar collapses, bankrupting the flying cities;

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History includes an installment in which the Psychotechnic Institute has failed and has been overthrown and outlawed;

Anderson's Technic History includes an installment in which the Polesotechnic League is cartelizing and is thwarting the development of planets and species lacking the necessary start-up capital;

the League Patrol series needed an installment in which someone called the League's bluff.

Some Late Night Other Reading

James Bond looks out of the window of his room in the St Regis Hotel, New York. We could compare sights seen by Bond with those seen by Poul Anderson's Time Patrolmen, including Manse Everard, in the same city. However, since it is nearly midnight here, we will focus instead on a single detail, relying on our regular readers to recognize its relevance:

"The wind sighed sadly outside in the velvet dusk, lending his room still more warmth and security and luxury."

-Ian Fleming, Live And Let Die (London, 2004), 4, p. 35.

This wind comments twice. It is sad - why? - and, by contrast, it emphasizes Bond's expensive indoor comfort.

And, this time, that really is all that we have time for tonight.

Good night.

Space Patrols

Poul Anderson, "Enough Rope" IN Anderson, Kinship With The Stars (New York, October 1991), pp. 216-248.

In the author's introduction:

"The scars of World War Two were not yet healed when I, in a story called "The Double-Dyed Villains," raised the question of whether armed forces - which science fiction was widely using in the form of various kinds of space patrols - really were a good answer to the problem of maintaining law and peace." (p. 216)

We will refer to:

Robert Heinlein's Scribner Juveniles;

Heinlein's Future History;

Anderson's Psychotechnic History.

Space Cadet is a Scribner Juvenile about the Interplanetary Space Patrol which prevents nuclear war by monopolizing nuclear weapons. A hero of the Patrol is John Ezra Dahlquist who died preventing a coup by his superior officer.

"The Long Watch" is a Future History short story about Dahlquist's death.

In the Psychotechnic History, the armed force of the Solar Union is the Solar Guard which is split by civil war when Earth withdraws from the Union.

And that is all that there is time for tonight.

League Patrol Policy And Deceit

"The Doubled-Dyed Villains."

An anticlimax, really. Alak kidnaps the Premier's daughter to make him call off the war but then carefully explains that:

Patrol agents are not allowed to kill;

they lie about having a large battle fleet;

he would not have harmed the daughter, whatever had happened;

the Patrol deploys such deceits because the only alternative would be genocidal interstellar wars waged by themselves or others;

as part of this, he explains the three other cases that we have been shown during the story.

Not much of a basis for an extended series although there are two other stories to check out.

In different timelines:

the Polesotechnic League preserves mercantile freedom - for a while;

the Time Patrol preserves human history;

the League Patrol preserves Galactic peace. 

Another Of Poul Anderson's Many Taverns

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

On p. 163, Wing Alak visits Yamen's tavern:

photoelectric doors;

crowded;

the sweepings of space;

many nonhumans from remote planets;

dim light;

smoke;

live show;

tiny stage;

small table;

dark corner;

coin into vendor for warm, thin beer from chute;

approached by a slithering, dragonlike, reptilian, drug-peddling Rassalan with "beadlly" (?) eyes, addicted to acrid, poisonous vurzin.

Some of Poul Anderson's taverns are underworld joints and this is.

Wind And The League

"The Double-Dyed Villains."

This Galactic League does rule some non-human beings. Sirians have tendrils and Mordhans have four arms. 

Poul Anderson had an early grasp of pathetic fallacy. Red firelight seems to splash the twelve Mordhan earls with blood. And is their number significant?

"Outside the windows, the mighty autumn wind flung sleet and rain at the castle walls and roared about its towers." (p. 161)

Atmospheric and dramatic! By now we always notice Andersonian wind. We expect it to underline or punctuate the dialogue and it does. The text continues:

"Dorlock who had called the meeting, spoke first. His deep voice was low, and the storm snarled over and around its rumble..." (ibid.)

One passage about Sirians and another about Mordhans inform readers that the League rules through deceit, deception, corruption and seduction. Sf is about alternatives.

Fully Realized Fictional Worlds

See the previous post and its combox here.

This opening passage of the first Wing Alak story, originally published in 1949, addresses political and military relationships between planetary governments and a Galactic government but does not describe any particular planet's physical environment or galactic location. The viewpoint character is on an extrasolar planet but also in a hotel room which could just as well have been in future New York. In that kind of sf, other planets were effectively empty stages for human-alien or even just human-human interactions.

Yet to come were the days when:

human beings explore Ythri out beyond Alpha and Beta Crucis;

Ythrians, employing some human beings, explore Gray, later renamed Avalon, which is in the same region of space;

human beings and Ythrians jointly colonize Avalon, first the Hesperian Islands, then the Coronan continent;

at last, Avalon is fully populated by both species and is part of the Domain of Ythri which is attacked by the Terran Empire;

thus, there are political and military interactions but between fully realized fictional worlds;

human beings have also colonized Hermes, Dennitza and other planets which are as fully realized as Ythri and Avalon.

I did not set out to post about the Technic History but have wound up doing so. But Wing Alak is still on our radar.

Introducing Wing Alak

Poul Anderson, "The Double-Dyed Villains" IN Anderson, The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson, Volume I, Call Me Joe (NESFA, Framingham, MA, March 2009), pp. 157-177.

OK. We begin to read the Wing Alak trilogy over Sunday breakfast after meditating and before walking to the gym so we will not penetrate very far into this first story this morning.

A planetary premier whips up his excitable population over their telescreens, declaring war on the League government and its Patrol. He will lead the Galaxy and refers to:

"'...man's tortured history.'" (p. 157)

Thinking quickly, sf readers deduce that this story is set in a future period when human beings have long been settled on planets throughout the galaxy.

Our viewpoint character, listening to the premier's speech in his hotel room, is called Wing Alak, a name that discloses nothing. However, when he is arrested, Alak is addressed as:

"'Wing Alak of Sol III...'" (p. 158)

- even though he has been posing as:

"'...Gol Duhinator of Maxlan IV...'" (ibid.)

The alert sf reader is thus informed that Alak is an undercover operative from Earth - probably capital planet of the League. Maxlan has to be a star, the planet where this is happening is called Luan and Luan's immediate grievance is that the League has given Lhing to Marhal:

"'...as a political bribe...'" (p. 157)

- according to the enraged Premier, Tranis Voal.

Stay tuned.

(The NESFA volume is too bulky to carry to the gym. However, I have two paperback volumes to take to read over lunch after an hour of exercise.)

One Minor Series

Short stories are too short. When we have finished one, we have to start another and we do not necessarily want the next one in the collection although there are many collections and a trilogy of short stories should occupy more time:

"The Double-Dyed Villains" is in Call Me Joe (see image);

"Enough Rope" and "The Live Coward" are in Kinship With The Stars.

The author's short introduction to "The Live Coward" reads:

"And here is another example of Wing Alak at his Machiavellian work. I could have written more stories in the series, but three were plenty. It was time to go on to something new."

-Poul Anderson, Kinship With The Stars (New York, October 1991), p. 249.

- which was Anderson's stated reason for discontinuing his Technic History.

We might also reread some of The King Of Ys although we will certainly not repeat all that we have already posted about that Tetralogy. But we also know that something new can always be found in Poul Anderson's works. Having just returned from the Light Up Lancaster Festival, it is time for some Other Reading.