Kipling, Guthrie And Fenn

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy, Rudyard Kipling is referred to by name in Volumes I and III and quoted without being named in Volumes II and IV. I don't really rate the Just So Stories, from the little that I know about them, but "...the old grey Widow-maker..." is a powerful poem.

In Volume IV, The Fleet Of Stars (New York, 1997), Chapter 3, download Anson Guthrie who had, as a human being, read Kipling was en route to Sol but in Chapters 4-16 we have seen only characters and events in the Inner Solar System. However, in Chapter 16, Guthrie's approach is announced, as it should be, as a dramatic event impacting the lives of some of those characters:

" 'Fenn,' she said, 'a ship from Alpha Centauri is approaching Proserpina.'
" Thunders rolled through his skull." (p. 206)

At this stage, only the reader knows who is in the ship. And, thanks to all the additional information provided by Anderson in subsequent chapters, we also know Fenn and his friends on Earth and Mars for whom Anson Guthrie's arrival will be a historical turning point. Guthrie, crossing the interstellar distance switched off, wakes at the beginning of Chapter 17...