Altai was colonized very early;
Betelgeuseans have been trading with it for less than a century;
before that, it was isolated;
the colonists' original spaceships wore out;
Altai is poor in metals;
therefore, building new ships would be expensive;
the Kha Khan has forbidden most of his subjects to leave the planet;
he has a few discrete representatives in the Betelgeusean System.
Approaching, Flandry sees:
the single small city, Ulan Baligh, at the meeting of two rivers;
tribesmen encamped around it;
a monorail around the city;
heavy missile launchers;
modern military aircraft hovering on grav repulsors;
armored brigade barracks and emplacements under construction;
tanks and beetlecars on guard;
a building that must hold a generator that would shield the town;
all of it new;
none of Terran manufacture.
His suspicions are confirmed.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of all the covers I've seen for the Flandry stories, the ones I like best were done by the late Roger Hane for the Chilton Books editions of ENSIGN FLANDRY, AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, and FLANDRY OF TERRA. Far better than the cringe inducing covers chosen by Baen Books for these stories.
Sean
Michael Whelan's covers for Ace Books. Ensign Flandry with his foot up on the ship's rail, and Dragoika in similar pose near him, a rifle in his hands and a sword in hers.... Captain Flandry on Altai — granted, the picture makes it look as if he intends to shoot at the aeromedusae drifting in the background....
Anderson is one of several writers who praised Whelan's cover pictures highly:
"Indeed, when for The Night Face an unconscious human is being carried off by a band of apelike creatures, the effect is precisely the half-mystical one for which the text strives; it's like a staging of Ondine. The eerie twilight on World Without Stars, the vigorous humor on The Man Who Counts, the sorrow on Question and Answer—these too show just what I was hoping to convey, which is most encouraging to me as a writer."
(Chapter preface in Whelan art collection Wonderworks, 1979)
Kaor, DAVID!
Cool beans! I remember the Whelan covers you listed, and even had them, except for WORLD WITHOUT STARS and THE MAN WHO COUNTS (I refuse to use the awful "original" name inflicted on the book over PA's protests). Now that I'm thinking about them, I would esp. like the Whelan cover for THE NIGHT FACE.
Sean
Flandry illustrates that the crucial thing in gathering intelligence is not raw data, but -understanding- it in context.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I agree. Flandy was able to not only collect raw data but able to make sense of it on the spot. I don't think all intelligence agents in the field can do that.
Sean
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