We have seen Jan Svoboda on Earth and in space. Now he flies a school bus on Rustum.
As in Julian May's Galactic Milieu, extra-solar colonists include exogenes.
Rustum has 1.25 Earth gravity so people who grow up there should be shorter and broader than on Earth? On the higher-gravity planet, Imhotep, in Poul Anderson's Technic History, people are muscular and never fat.
On the massive planet, Jinx, in Larry Niven's Known Space future history, some colonials are almost as wide as they are high as Anderson tells us in one of his contributions to the Man-Kzin Wars period of Known Space. See Jinx And The Old Red Dwarf.
The four parts of Orbit Unlimited are called:
"Robin Hood's Barn"
"The Burning Bridge"
"And Yet So Far"
"The Mills Of The Gods"
The first title means that it is a roundabout route to get the Rustum colonization mission launched. The second means that they cannot go back. The third means that they nearly don't make it. The fourth means - I will find out.
The second part ends:
"Time is the bridge that always burns behind us." (5, p. 70)
- as powerful an image as "The Horn of Time the Hunter" in the Kith History.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But it probably needed several generations for the people of Rustum to become, on average, short and stocky due to the higher gravity of Rustum compared to Earth.
Sean
Sean,
Oh yes.
Paul.
Paul and Sean:
"The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine."
On a site called www.bookbrowse.com, this is said to mean: "Justice may be slow but it will come eventually." [Which is certainly what I'd taken from it.]
"The earliest known use of this expression is by 3rd century Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus...
"Although little is known of his life, some of his writings ... survived the European "Dark Ages" to be rediscovered in the mid-16th century, at which point they were translated into Latin and caused quite a stir as they represented the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman skepticism.
"Skepticism, in the context of classical philosophy, refers to the teachings and the traits of the Skeptikoi, a school of philosophers who took the position that one should avoid the postulation of final truths."
What I take from this is that somebody in the Rustum colony will receive retribution for some wrongdoing, possibly even something dating back to the opening story. Perhaps the elder Svoboda will find the manipulative scheming, including his sabotage of the educational system, that launched the colony comes back to bite him in the backside.
Kaor, DAVID!
I always read your too few comments with interest! But, I have my doubts about what you said about Commissioner Svoboda, due to him saying at the very end of "Robin Hood's Barn," the first part of ORBIT UNLIMITED, that he would probably be dead by the time the colonization fleet reached Rustum. Indeed, the message from Earth which reached the fleet DURING the journey to Rustum, at the beginning of "The Burning Bridge," the second part of ORBIT, said the eldeer Svoboda had died.
So, I think it's more likely that the saying from Sextus Empiricus about "The mills of the gods..." most likely refers to events and persons on Rustum itself, in the fourth and last part of ORBIT.
David,
I did not expect an analysis of the phrase, "The mills of the gods," Thank you.
Paul.
Paul:
Here's an odd coincidence. After posting about "the mills of the gods," I visited a local bookstore, bought a book that just came out ... and found that one of the chapter titles is "The Mills of God."
Cue the Twilight Zone music.
David,
You are an Odd Coincidences Man.
Paul.
Kaor, DAVID!
And it would be genuinely odd if that book you purchased MENTIONED Sextus Empiricus!
I will be looking up Empiricus, whom I had never heard of before David's comments.
Sean
To make people stockier would require extensive natural selection -- that is, tall slender people dying earlier, having fewer children, etc., and the stockier ones the reverse.
Of course, there could be offsetting factors -- 1.25 G would stress the circulatory system, and different body-plans might have an impact on that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that was the impression or conclusion I got from both the Rustum series and the planet Imhotep in THE GAME OF EMPIRE, the higher gravity would FAVOR shorter, stockier people. In time men would probably average maybe five feet, four inches and women would be an average five feet in height.
Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
There’s natural selection, and then there’s environment affecting the individual. Someone growing up in higher gravity would be likely to develop thicker bones and heavier muscles from standing up, walking, and performing other activities, so he would appear more thickly built than his cousin on Earth. I don’t know whether he would also be shorter.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Post a Comment