Anomalous Avalon

(It was not my idea to veer back into the Avalonian section of the Technic History. The works already discussed are like a four-dimensional maze. Thinking that we have left the maze, we find ourselves back at its center.)

The planet Avalon in the Lauran System is an anomaly:

the colony was founded by a human being;

it is jointly governed by the Parliament of Man and the Great Khruath of the Ythrians;

centuries later, the planet is still inhabited by more human beings than Ythrians;

however, Avalon is part of the Domain of Ythri, not of the Terran Empire;

many of its human inhabitants join Ythrian choths although some of the ornithoids become "Walkers," atomic individuals in a global community;

the First Marchwarden of the Lauran System is an Ythrian, Ferune of Mistwood, who reads Terran classics in three original languages for pleasure (I wish I could);

the Second Marchwarden, a human being, goes to confer with Ferune when the latter has returned from Ythri - they need to discuss the threat from Terra.

Thus, Second Marchwarden Daniel Holm confers with an Ythrian returned from Ythri about war against Earth. However, Holm is not a traitor to his species as, later in this history, a man who knowingly helped the racist Merseians would be. Fighting to stay out of the Empire is not on a par with helping to enslave or exterminate humanity. Leaving that to one side, it is interesting to note that Daniel Holm, and still more his son, now identifies with a tradition originating not on Earth but elsewhere, even though he is a citizen of a colony founded by a human being. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.

Ferune's office in the Lauran admiralty, adapted to ornithoid use, has a perch and:

"...a genuine huge window, open on garden-scented breezes and a downhill view of Gray and the waters aglitter beyond."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 454.

Ythrians are the People of the Wind. They must feel moving air and see not walls, pictures or screens but the view down to the sea.