Van Rijn must use his "...well-worn personal blaster..." (p. 8) against hostile natives just as, later in the Technic History, "Lodestar" begins with the trader team defending itself against native rebels on another planet. Fights with aliens was what I once thought that sf was all about. Now, of course, Poul Anderson has to show us that there is a lot more going on than just crossbows and blasters.
The narrative is from Joyce's point of view but she loses consciousness so suddenly we get van Rijn's pov instead. Ammonia stings Joyce's nostrils (that is her pov), van Rijn closes her faceplate, then sees that she is stunned (that is his pov). When she regains consciousness, we return to her pov. An unusual sequence of pov switches for Anderson.
The adventure begins on t'Kela.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
No one seems to notice, but "Territory" begins with a musical score. If anyone can read music has seen that, I hope he will explain what it means.
Ad astra! Sean
Re: the musical score.
I finally found my copy of "Trader to the Stars", so I can comment.
I can play (approximately) that on my violin. I guess I could record that, but I'm not sure where I could put it so you could play it back. So I will try to explain the musical notation.
The 1st 2 and last 2 notes are played or whistled (or whatever) for a fairly long time all the same length, 'whole' notes or 4 'beats', the shape of the note indicates that.
The pitch of the notes is indicated by where on the series of horizontal lines the notes are placed. With the addition that # indicates a 'semitone' higher and thing that looks like b indicates a semitone lower.
The 1st one is 'middle C', the 2nd is F above that, a major third higher pitched.
The middle section indicates 4 very short notes, each 1/32 the duration of the whole notes. gliss is short for glissando (a word from Italian) meaning slide from note to note rather than play each distinctly. So that starts at middle C and slides up to A.
The 2nd last note is B (so just slightly less than an octave above the 1st note) and the last note is B flat, a semitone lower than the previous note.
This might be of some help to someone who doesn't know musical notation.
As for what it means...
Going by the text that follows.
To the beings making it, it means "I'm going to kill you".
Kaor, Jim!
Ha! Many thanks, these comments of yours should be included as an annotation to "Territory" in any COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON.
Merry Christmas! Sean
An audio clip could be made of that short bit of sound. That could could be included as something that could be played at the start of an electronic text or as part of an audio book.
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