Sargasso Of Lost Starships

Poul Anderson's "Sargasso of Lost Starships" is thematically similar to his "The Queen of Air and Darkness." In both stories, mentally powerful aliens pretend to be supernatural in order to manipulate human beings who are easily intimidated because they are far from home in a daunting universe. On rereading "Sargasso...," I liked the idea that men approaching a Black Nebula in an atomic-powered spaceship could be persuaded that their ship and even the entire Nebula were haunted... Sometimes, fantasy and science fiction ideas can be powerfully combined.

The Arzunians have two super-powers:

telekinesis;

teleportation, i.e., personal bodily hyperspatial travel as far as planets on the fringes of their Nebula.

Thus, they can:

appear as gods and exact sacrifice of goods and materials on the fringe planets;

teleport onto a spaceship and vibrate molecules of air near each spaceman's ears warning him away from the Nebula;

or, since they themselves lack technological aptitudes, capture spaceships and try to induce the crews to fly them beyond their own personal range, into the Terran Empire.

The physical description of one Arzunian, Morzach, matches those of two other Anderson villains, both time travelers, Brann and Merau Varagan: tall, black-caped, white-faced.

The story belongs in the Technic History, introducing green Shalmuans and centauroid Donarrians and the planet Ansa and informing us that the Manuel who had founded the Empire has been succeeded by his son, then by a grandson, Manuel II, who has almost completed the building of the Empire as a defensible socio-economic unit. Van Rijn's contemporaries had drunk Ansan wine.

For their powers, the Arzunians must tap into a cosmic energy source which I suggest is also the basis of the Chereionites' telepathy. Later, Flandry and Aycharaych clash in a nebula that is also regarded with superstitious awe by a nearby race. I think that "Sargasso of Lost Starships" fits into the History better than I had previously realized.