Captain Nansen is one lucky guy. Of the four women in the Envoy crew, he is with one, Kilbirnie, until she unfortunately dies during the voyage and is married to another, Dayan, by the end of the novel.
In Chapter 5, Nansen and Dayan ride on his family estate in Paraguay.
In Chapter 49, he has a similar estate on the planet Harbor.
In Chapter 52, Nansen and Dayan, married, ride on the estate on Harbor.
Such an estate traditionally employs servants. Such are unnecessary on Harbor but Anderson reproduces that ambiance. The household staff are really apprentices spending time with the starfarers.
Nansen addresses parliament. Chapter 52 is a beginning:
the Envoy crew and the surviving Kith are coming together;
better starships are being built with new knowledge;
new terrestroid planets will be colonized;
planetary engineering systems will make settlement possible or easier than before;
anyone who wants to will be able to star travel;
other races will be contacted;
millions of starships flying will make the cosmic substrate more stable (this was explained earlier);
now that they know that it is possible, human beings will discover how to build transtemporal communicators.
Most of this is still to happen. It does not necessarily involve recontacting the quantum intelligences as I had thought. But it was those intelligences that had received messages from the future about the cosmic role of interstellar travel.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
and the "quantum intelligences" Anderson speculated about in STARFARERS simpy HAS to be one of the strangest ideas I've ever came across in SF! In fact, it was probably one of those ideas found in his later books which made me hesitant for a time about the quality of those works. I needed to reread the HARVEST OF STARS books and STARFARERS before I could TRULY appreciate how boldly imaginative and creative Anderson continued to be in his late phase.
Sean
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