"'Commander...your young man makes me proud to be a sentient creature. What might our united races not accomplish? Hunt well.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 145.
Merseians, like the Ardazirho or the kzinti, regard themselves primarily as hunters, not as, e.g., builders or thinkers. We can agree with Brechdan's sentiment while not accepting his concept of "united." However, a genuine union of the two species as equals develops on Dennitza.
A Merseian captain about to fire on Flandry's ship tells him and his companion:
"'...prepare your minds for the God.'" (ibid.)
A civilized being realizing that another faces death must treat him with respect. Here, at least, we are equals.
In the Young Flandry trilogy, our hero goes through some fundamental stages of development - rites of passage?:
"Something had changed in his face. He was almost a stranger...she had identified the change in him, the thing which had gone and would never quite come back. Youth." (pp. 151-152)
"'...I'll wish this, that you never get the [woman] you really want.'" (p. 365)
These interactions with two young women define the Flandry of the later series.
1 comment:
Hi, Paul!
I'm not sure your interpretation of what Persis d'Io saw as Flandry was losing his "youth" is quite correct. What I thought from reading that passage in ENSIGN FLANDRY was the shock Flandry felt in discovering how ruthless Brechdan Ironrede and his Grand Council was. That is, the shock he felt from discovering how FAR the Merseians would go in their efforts to bring down the Empire--gradually nurse the conflict on Starkad till the bulk of the Imperial Navy was marshalled near that planet, to be destroyed when Saxo exploded. To say nothing of the shock Flandry must have also felt from realizing the Merseians would cold bloodedly let two entire intelligent races be exterminated, if that was what it took to destroy the Empire.
Sean
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