"Going To And Fro In The Earth"

Poul Anderson is perfectly capable of slipping a Biblical phrase past us without our noticing it although the grandeur of the language makes its impact, nevertheless.

"Once in his drifting to and fro across Earth, Jesse Nicol found a quivira left over from olden times."
-Poul Anderson, Harvest The Fire (New York, 1997), Prologue, p. 9.

"Trouble is loose, and again there is need for me to go to and fro in the world."
-op. cit., Chapter 1, p. 33.

And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
-copied from here.

First I noticed that the phrase used of Jesse Nicol at the beginning of the Prologue was immediately re-used of our old acquaintance, Venator, at the beginning of Chapter 1, then I thought that it sounded familiar...

And, in this Biblical context, is the name "Jesse" significant?

Nicol drifts to and fro because he is aimless, or at best seeking an aim, whereas Venator will go to and fro purposefully because he wants to:

"...do my work as soon as may be and return to the Oneness." (ibid.)

Nicol appears in this one volume whereas Venator had been in the previous volume but is now biologically dead and will have to go to and fro as a human personality downloaded into an artificial neural network in a robotic body. Each future history series carries its own background material informing later installments.