A Loftier Argo

We rightly commend the Introduction to Poul Anderson's "Hiding Place," which begins:

"'The world's great age begins anew...'
"As it has before, and will again. The comings and goings of man have their seasons."
-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION, HIDING PLACE IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 555-556 AT p. 555.

- and ends:

"We cannot foretell what will come of it. We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way.
"-Le Matelot."
-op. cit., p. 556.

However, Anderson's "The Master Key" has an equivalently inspirational Introduction:

"A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
"Fraught with a later prize;
"Another Orpheus sings again,
"And loves, and weeps, and dies.
"A new Ulysses leaves once more
"Calypso for his native shore.
"-Shelley."
-Poul Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), p. 273.

"Hiding Place" and "The Master Key" were the first and third of three stories previously collected as Trader To The Stars, now collected in Volumes I and II respectively of The Technic Civilization Saga. The opening line quoted by Le Matelot and the stanza quoted to introduce "The Master Key," both taken from "Hellas" by Percy Shelley, perfectly express the sense of adventure in the springtime of the Polesotechnic League.

Le Matelot writes that:

"The comings and goings of man...are no more mysterious than the annual cycle of the planet, and no less." (See above.)

"...the planet..." implies that, although Le Matelot writes that "...we are sailing out among the stars...," he himself is on Earth. We know nothing else about him. He is another of our mysterious commentators.

"The Master Key" describes dusk over Chicago Integrate which stretches beyond the horizon and recalls San Francisco Integrate in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson." (See also Rio de Janeiro Integrate, here, and Sandra Tamarin on Earth, here.) The first person narrator enters Nicholas van Rijn's penthouse apartment on the Winged Cross which is visited in other works by Emil Dalmady and by the Falkayns.

The Technic History imparts a sense not only of time but also of place.