Coya I

Although I regard the van Rijn and trader team sequences as discrete sub-series, it makes sense to alternate the stories. Thus, in the second volume of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, a van Rijn story, "The Master Key," comes between two trader team installments. This generates a sense either of simultaneous events involving coexisting characters or of time passing for those who are currently off stage. However, the two sub-series seamlessly re-coalesce in the two-part conclusion, "Lodestar" and Mirkheim, both titles referring to a single industrially valuable planet.

"Lodestar" introduces Coya Conyon whose biography, when we come to summarize it, will show us something of life in the Solar Commonwealth and other parts of space during a critical period in Technic History. When I have completed a few other tasks, I will return to this theme.