Sunday 11 January 2015

What Happened At Mirkheim

Poul Anderson's "Lodestar" comprises a trader team story followed by a Nicholas van Rijn story followed by a meeting between van Rijn and the team. In the van Rijn story:

van Rin asks Coya Conyon to calculate the probability of a particular kind of supernova remnant, then sets out to follow the resulting search pattern in the hired Ythrian spaceship, Dewfall;

knowing that David Falkayn had run the same program ten years previously, Coya writes to warn David and blackmails van Rijn to take her on Dewfall;

when Dewfall finds Mirkheim, Supermetals ships try to detain her but she escapes;

then Dewfall meets Falkayn's ship, Muddlin' Through, which is returning to Mirkheim in response to Coya's letter. I want to discuss the meeting but am being interrupted.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

And of course David Falkayn suffered a crisis of conscience because of finding Mirkheim and then setting up the Supermetals Company. Because doing so had violated his oath of fealty to van Rijn. He should have reported the discovery of Mirkheim to Old Nick instead of keeping it secret. True, he had moral reasons for doing so, reasons he believed strong enough to justify the violation of his oath, but it still troubled Falkayn.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
Falkayn could have taken the Supermetals idea to van Rijn at the outset?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

An intriguing notion! Old Nick might or might not have gone along with that idea, but since Falkayn did not make such an attempt, we don't know what might have happened. So, from a strictly ethical POV, van Rijn had the better case, he had a right to think Falkayn had betrayed him.

Heck, if Old Nick had been approached by Falkayn about setting up the Supermetals Company, he might still, for that matter, have gotten a big cut if he had agreed. Mirkheim was THAT rich and profitable a source of rare metals and elements.

Sean