The Beauty And The Politics Of Hermes

When Sandra Tamarin, not yet Grand Duchess of Hermes, and Peter Asmundsen, not yet married to Sandra, ride from Brightwater to the industrial community at Whistle Creek, where they expect to visit the plant and to have lunch, their route is along ridges, down vales, beside brooks and across meadows. The forests in the vales are gold, bronze, turquoise, amethyst, silver and green.

Whistle Creek is a copper mine and refinery surrounded by houses, shops and public buildings. On this day, the streets, smelling of the woods, are empty because a crowd of a few hundred, mostly Travers, is in the park listening to a Liberation Front speech. Runeberg Followers stand apart, looking unhappy, and police are present. (The police are Followers. State structures support social stratifications.) Peter's brother, the general manager, is elsewhere that day and the meeting looks set to continue into afternoon work hours.

When the speaker recognizes Peter and invites him to speak, he cheerfully declines to chuckles from the Followers and half of the Travers. Some glance at their watches. Skilled technicians cannot be away from work for too long. When pressed further, Peter says that:

social issues are fully discussed in the Starfall Weekly Meteor and in other publications;
political structures are means, not ends;
Hermes is a pleasant place to live;
the restless may apply to him for jobs exploiting the other Maian planets although this would take them away from working for his brother.

To general laughter, Sandra and he ride away. We commend Poul Anderson both for his descriptions of nature and for his insights into political interactions.