Per Stenvik describes the planet where Nicholas van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company had sent him "'...to establish a trading post.'" (p. 280) The coordinates are a trade secret. However, toward Pegasus, a dwarf star half as bright as Sol has eight planets, including one terrestroid.
"'Brander came upon it in the course of a survey...'" (ibid.)
This is the only time that we hear of Brander. Would it have been more fitting if the initial survey of the planet, called "Cain," had been done by Falkayn's trade pioneer crew? The publication dates are:
"The Trouble Twisters" (1965);
"Day of Burning" (1967);
"The Master Key" (1971)
- and these three stories are consecutive in the Chronology so Anderson could have written Per as referring to Falkayn instead of to Brander. However, in that case, Cain would first have been surveyed from space by a robot probe, then Falkayn's crew would have surveyed on the ground and negotiated with the Cainites. Thus, the business dealings would have been further along before Per got there.
In any case, Brander:
taped the language spoken near where he camped;
did some basic planetography and bionics;
thus, learned about the potentially valuable furs and herbs of interest to SSL.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
But I think it was a REALISTIC touch that the expedition which first discovered Cain was led by a man other than Falkayn. It's more plausible to keep in mind that Old Nick would have other explorers, entrepreneurs, and trader teams working for him besides Falkayn and his colleagues. The sheer vastness of a company working on an interstellar scales makes it almost inevitable that Cain was not investigated by Falkayn.
Ad astra! Sean
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