The Red Queen's Race

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 40.

On L-5, human beings have taken grass, trees and birds into space to satisfy ancestral needs.

"'I think the life force is not, in its innermost being, progressive. It is profoundly conservative. It does what it must to keep what is.'" (p. 390)

"'It is the same for our societies...To save what it is, life perforce adapts, evolves; and so it changes what it is. But the course of that evolution was set by the wish to abide.'" (ibid.)

To stay the same, we change. What could be more paradoxical or dialectical? The Red Queen runs as fast as she can to stay where she is, like walking up a down escalator, and evolution has progressed from a single self-replicating molecule to self-consciousness. Society changes around Fireball and those who most dislike the change try to preserve their idea of freedom by going to a place that will make different demands in any case.

"'...who knows?'" the space pilot asked the wind." (ibid.)

In Poul Anderson's works, the wind sometimes comments but here the answer remains to be learned.