In Space

(In 1907, not only cars but even fountain pens were a new big deal!
See A Hundred Years Or So.)

For Love And Glory, XLV.

("XLV" means "45," doesn't it? The trouble with these Roman numerals is that you have to keep working them out. This one means "50 - 10 + 5.")

Lissa, Hebo and Dzesi are going somewhere important in a spaceship so we have to have a chapter set inside the ship as we do more than once with Dominic Flandry and others.

Stars seen through the viewscreen are:

"...gems of frost strewn through a crystal darkness. How often had she beheld this? Yet it never failed to stir awe deep within her." (p. 251)

How often has Poul Anderson described this, always differently?

Here is something that we did not know about life in spaceships:

"Full health on a long trip required weatherlike variations in air." (ibid.)

This chapter describes two variations:

"At the present stage of the cycle it bore a slight, electric tinge of ozone." (ibid.)

"The air rustled, cooling off, smelling more and more like a rainstorm drawing nigh." (p. 253)

Dzesi the Rikhan goes "'...to kshanta.'" (p. 251)

All that her human partner, Hebo, knows about kshanta is that:

"'It involves being alone for several hours.'" (p. 252)

Discussing the characteristics of intelligent races, Hebo comments:

"'I wouldn't call anything except their basic biology true of every culture and every individual in any race.'" (ibid.)

Right. Intelligence is the ability to change our environments and thus also to change ourselves in the process. Human variations look like different species. See:

"Homo Sum"
The Discovery Of The Past II