City

Poul Anderson, World Without Stars, II.

In the orbiting starport, City, Lute lives in high-weight, overlooking space, but she and her husbands can afford it. Argens thinks that she is his favorite portwife. There is no awkwardness when two of her husbands are in port.

Her door dilates. Wenli, their young daughter, is feverish from a mutated extraterrestrial neovirus. Biotechs in frontier posts lack equipment to make quick-cure molecules so Wenli must recover naturally. When, as a young adult, she receives the antithanatic, her cells will instantly reject infections.

From the porch, they see the galactic rim and intergalactic space. Their old-fashioned guest, Hugh Valland, courteously declines full hospitality. He was alive when the antithanatic was developed and had experienced most spaceman's jobs before the academies were founded.

The details of this civilization, which is unique in sf and even among Poul Anderson's works, are endlessly fascinating.