"The Star Plunderer," although not set during the Long Night, was collected in The Long Night and this cover accurately captures the story's opening scene. The first person narrator, Reeves, tells us that the Baldics have sacked Terra twice in fifteen years so we gather that a lot has happened in the Solar System since we last saw it three Technic History installments ago.
But who are the Baldics? And what internal evidence is there that this pulp magazine action story even belongs in the sophisticated Technic History? One Baldic, or at least one of Reeves' current antagonists, is a big, gray, four-armed barbarian. Does that sound familiar? Yes. Turning the page, we learn that Reeves and his companion, Kathryn, are fighting the Gorzuni. They were mercenaries in Satan's World and Supermetals Company members in Mirkheim. So, despite appearances to the contrary, the narrative remains within the same timeline as Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn.
On the next page, Reeves identifies Kathryn and himself as belonging to "...the broken Commonwealth navy..." (p. 329) Van Rijn had taught us to regard the government of the Solar Commonwealth as an enemy but now we sympathize with two of its employees.
We will learn that the Baldic League is an alliance of human and non-human barbarians and I have posted more than enough for this month!
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I have proposed in my revision of Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, that the events in MIRKHEIM occurred in AD 2501. The Solar Commonwealth, altho becoming oppressive, was still a long way from collapsing (and the Polesotechnic League probably survived till the late 2500's). Therfore, my guess is the Time of Troubles did not truly begin till about AD 2590. So I can imagine A.A. Craig interviewing the aged Jack Birnam some forty or so years later, during that "pause" in the Troubles.
And my guess is that knowledge of Wayland was lost some time around 2600, when that Polesotechic League base on Irumclaw was bombed. Leon Ammon and Dominic Flandry discussed how that base had existed some 500 years before their time (in Chapter II of A CIRCUS OF HELLS).
Sean
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