Concluding The Enemy Stars

In Poul Anderson's The Enemy Stars (London, 1979):

"...if there was to be enough reaction mass for deceleration and maneuver, the blast must be terminated." (p. 7)

I had though that, just as crews were teleported to and from the interstellar ships, fuel was teleported there also but apparently not.

Maclaren's companion "...was of a carefully selected mutant Burmese strain...flying about the planet without so much as an amazon for chaperone." (p. 9)

So there are mutants and even (unexplained) "amazons." Anderson hints at a lot of social background material that is not elaborated in the novel. The woman's guardian is General Feng and we are told that generals grab the top global title of Protector.

" '...a truly burned out star...Is the universe old enough for any sun to have used up its nuclear and gravitational energy? By the ancestors, it's conceivable this one is left over from some previous cycle of creation!'" (p. 11)

Is that possible? I thought that, between cycles, all matter was reduced to its constituents, then compressed into the next monobloc? That happens in other Anderson works.

" 'The highest interhuman art is to make it possible for others to use their arts.'" (p. 111)

This is also the point of Anderson's The Man Who Counts.

Is it clear at the end of the novel that David's widow and former shipmate are coming together? This is confirmed in the sequel, "The Ways of Love," whose theme is foreshadowed here:

" 'In ten years we may begin to talk to [the aliens].'" (p. 134)

Yet again that futuristic flying vehicle appears:

"Maclaren pointed his aircar earthward." (p. 137)