Rouvaratz is speaking and is in mid-sentence when:
"Then they were struck." (p. 95)
The unexpected happens to astronauts far out in the Solar System. This is a kind of moment that we recognize:
"...and then -
"The sky exploded."
-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 709-794 AT pp. 779-780.
"Suddenly, warningless, the rock gave way under Tersten's boots."
-Poul Anderson, The Boat Of A Million Years (London, 1991), XIX, p. 476.
"Hanno clung.
"Something snatched him.
"He was down in a roaring black."
-ibid., p. 587.
"Abruptly the hull shuddered and bucked."
-Poul Anderson, "Pride" IN Anderson, Space Folk (New York, 1989), pp. 1-28 AT p. 22.
"The thing erupted."
-Poul Anderson, "Pele" IN Man-Kzin Wars IX (Riverdale, NY, 2002), pp. 1-95 AT p. 53.
And so on.
The cosmic setting:
"...the Milky Way rimmed [the spaceboat's] visual universe."
-"In The Shadow," p. 98.
"His radio receiver hummed with the beam from the Shikari, rustled with spatial interference, the voice of nebulae and galaxies." (p. 99)
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteBecause of these lengthy discussions of the Directorate series, I've started rereading those four stories again. Julian May will just have to wait, I fear!
Not sure I have MAN-KZIN WARS IX, I'll have to check. I do have the issue of ANALOG first publishing "Pele." I was esp. impressed by the beginning of story, focusing on the Kzin and their strange ways and customs.
Sean