Rescuers On Avalon

In "Wingless," Nat Falkayn is twelve years Terrestrial, seventeen Avalonian, whereas, in "Rescue on Avalon," Jack Birnam is seventeen Terrestrial, twenty-four Avalonian. I have written the Terrestrial numbers first whereas, of course, the Avalonians think in terms of Avalonian years. Each rescues an injured Ythrian. Nat rescues his contemporary, Keshchyi, whereas Jack rescues Ayan, Wyvan of Stormgate Choth, a VIP. A balancing story might be of an Ythrian rescuing a human being.

To rescue Keshchyi, Nat essentially has to do no more than swim - Ythrians cannot do this - whereas, to rescue Ayan, Jack must endure his allergy to Ythrians.

Ayan, in his distress, addresses Jack as "'...human...'" ("Rescue on Avalon," p. 320) Imagine being able to respond to an alien being appealing to you in this way.

I have summarized the following scene before but it bears repetition. The window of Ayan's hospital room opens onto:

a lawn;
tall trees - Avalonian king's crown, Ythrian windnest, Terrestrial oak;
distant snowpeaks;
light that spills from heaven;
singing air.

Ayan looks out wistfully.

There is a peaceful evening recuperation scene near the end of Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth." At a Time Patrol resort in Hawaii before the Polynesians arrived:

"We sat on a deck which abutted the building. Dusk gathered cool and blue in the garden, across the flowering forest beyond. Eastward, land dropped steeply to where the sea glimmered quicksilver; westward, the evening star trembled above Mauna Kea. A brook chimed. Here was the peace that heals."
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 1991), pp. 207-289 AT p. 286.

Familiarity with the Technic History and the Time Patrol enables the reader to find many resonances between them.