The fleet is in orbit around Rustum while the spaceship crews help the colonists to get established on the surface. Jan Svoboda, a colonist, reflects that the spacemen make repeated decades-long interstellar journeys, each time returning "...to an Earth grown more alien..." (p. 84) In fact, the spacemen explore uninhabited extra-solar planets, then return to a changed Terrestrial society with the consequence that Earth (maybe) becomes the most alien of the planets that they visit?
"The spacemen were explorers. Their mystique could not be reconciled with that of the Constitutionalists, who had dragged these ships to Rustum because of a preoccupation with details of government which the spacemen found ridiculous. No wonder we don't get along with each other. The two parties belong to two different civilizations." (p. 84)
Here are the seeds of the interstellar Kith culture although that is in a different series. The Kith become not only explorers but also traders. Their FTL counterparts are the Nomads in the Psychotechnic History.
Finally, for this post:
"Kivi scowled at the thin foam of the Milky Way." (p. 85)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I prefer Anderson's more strongly worded "...an Earth grown more alien," rather than merely "changed." And, eventually, as we know from the later stories in the "History of Rustum" timeline, MORE terrestroid planets were eventually found.
Sean
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