Back To Starkad III

The vaz-Siravo are relatively near-sighted but have very delicate tactile, thermal, kinesthetic, olfactory and other perceptions. They do not look forward but scent future perfumes.

Their cities differ. Reefcastle houses are stone and coraloid in the skerries off an island. The inhabitants have more conflict with the land-dwellers. Outlier is built above an abyss where fish and forests are luminous, rocks are time-worn and livid, the water tastes of volcano and the silence is absolute.

Understanding neither Eriau nor the Siravo language, Flandry and his companions are guided by Isinglass who knows some Kursovikian, a language of the land-dwellers, and can use a portable vocalizer. However, Flandry's visit is cut short. The leading xenologist, John Ridenour, who will be a viewpoint character in a later story, curtly tells him:

"'You may be out of the matter anyhow, Flandry...You report to Commander Abrams at Highport...Special duty. I don't know what.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 79.

Flandry will accompany Abrams to Merseia and become fluent in Eriau.