Friday 14 February 2020

The Weather Stations Theme

Henry Kittredge to Adzel and Chee Lan:

"'Vixen's a better place to live than it was,' Kittredge said with an uprising of pride. 'Our share in Supermetals has paid for founding a net of weather stations, which we badly needed...'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT XVI, p. 227.

Flandry to Kit Kittredge:

"'Let's see, you were a weather engineer's assistant for a living, isn't that right? Sounds like fun, in an earnest high-booted way.' And might prove useful, added that part of him which never took a vacation."
-"Hunters of the Sky Cave," VIII, p. 208.

It will prove useful - or it would not have been mentioned.

In Kit's home city, Garth:

"...a skeletal transmitter tower for one of the robotic weather-monitor stations strewn over the planet." (X, p. 222)

Weather is critical on Vixen and a weather station will play a role in Flandry's mission. Since Mirkheim was written later but is set earlier, Anderson carefully included an earlier Kittredge mentioning weather stations. Future history series are written both forwards and backwards. Here, the Falkayn and Flandry eras are closely linked.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would have liked to have known more about what exactly those robotic weather monitoring stations on Vixen DID.

Ad astra! Sean