In "Remote Galaxies," I summarized what Chapters III and IV of Poul Anderson's World Without Stars (New York, 1966) tell us about the crew of the spaceship Meteor. Chapter V completes the picture.
Bren and Galmer are pilots. The two crew members who were unnamed earlier are the engineers Morn Krisnan and Roli Blax but both of them die when the ship crashes and they are soon joined by Smeth.
The crew will later also lose Rorn. Thus, only Argens, Valland, Bren, Galmer and Urduga will make it back to Earth after four decades marooned on the wrong planet in intergalactic space.
Valland, because of his long experience, is the one who has the presence of mind to shout:
" 'Pilots! For God's sake, reverse us and blast!' " (p. 29)
- when the jump ends too near a planet instead of safely out in space. That rouses Captain Argens who then issues orders but it is Valland who leads when the survivors must wage a war and organize the building of a spaceboat.
Three millennia of experience must count for something even though most of it is not consciously remembered.
1 comment:
A plot point that bothered me about "World Without Stars".
Why adjust the relative velocity *before* the jump?
Aside from it being needed to create the disaster that drives the plot.
If there was something inherent to this instant drive making it necessary to adjust the relative velocity 1st, I missed it being pointed out in the story.
In general it would be best to jump to a point such that the relative velocity takes the ship toward the destination & then the ship decelerates to hit zero relative velocity when the distance is zero.
Post a Comment