A Mystery Solved?

See here.

The opening passage of the Prologue of Poul Anderson's Mirkheim states that:

a massive planet orbited a massive star;
there may have been smaller planets;
however, the star exploded, utterly destroying any lesser planets;
only the core of the massive planet remained.

In the earlier published "Lodestar," the astrophysicist, Coya Conyon, had explained the unusual existence of any planet near a giant star. The massive, superjovian, barely substellar, planet was not simply in orbit around the massive star but was its partner in a double system. It was the probability of such an unusually matched double star that had been calculated by Falkayn, then by Coya working for van Rijn. If this is the case, then there is no need to postulate any planetary system in orbit around the giant star.

The Prologue of Mirkheim describes the giant planet as a "...companion..." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 1) of the star but also states that this companion was orbiting the star, not that star and companion were in orbit around a common center of gravity. Maybe, given the differences in their relative sizes, the point is moot? An astronomer told me that Earth and Moon are a double planet but with its center of gravity inside the Earth. However, the Prologue of Mirkheim does seem to contradict Coya's account.