On The Highroad River IV

After the Cynthian town, Lulach, the last stop on the Highroad River is the Donarrian settlement, Ghundrung, with, to the south of it, a jungle containing, it is thought, Ancient ruins with inscriptions, so it seems that Axor was right to come to the Patrician System. However, his research into the Ancients is delayed by the necessities of war so we never do learn any more about this matter.

In a previous post, for convenience, I described the Zacharians as a cloned community, knowing that this was not quite right but also knowing that I would retrieve the proper explanation by continuing to reread The Game Of Empire (IN Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012).

Diana refers to the Zacharians as "'Those cloned people...'" (p. 352) but Targovi explains that, although they are genetically near-identical, apart from sex, they reproduce normally. However, they are a hermit community despite their interstellar business operations. Marrying out means exile although they do spread their superior genes generously.

Visiting the Zacharians at home, as the trio propose to do, means leaving the river and crossing the Phosphoric Ocean to the island of Zacharia where there will be further explanation of the nature of this curious autonomous community.