Peregrine Joachim Henry says:
"'Space is too big. Even this little splinter of the Galaxy that man has traversed is larger than we can think - and we've spent our lives in the void. It's thirty thousand light-years to Galactic center. There are some hundred billion suns in the Galaxy! Man will never be able to think concretely in such terms. It just can't be done.'" (p. 11)
Thus, Joachim joins our "the edge of one spiral arm" merchants (see here) although he does not mention the spiral arm.
Joachim draws a practical conclusion:
"'So a lot of information lies around in the shape of isolated facts, and nobody coordinates it and sees what the facts mean. Even the Service can't do it - they have troubles enough running the Union without worrying about the frontiers and the beyond-frontiers. When I started investigating, I found I was the first being who'd even thought of this.'" (ibid.)
This is a far cry from the Galaxy where Earth is one of the "great worlds" in "The Green Thumb." See here. Yet The Peregrine mentions the Nerthusian natives who remained hidden when human beings colonized their planet. (p. 12) Thus, although (I argue) "The Green Thumb" does not fit into this future history, some of its events do.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
At least "The Green Thumb" is more arguably part of the Psychotechnis history than is "The Chapter Ends."
Ad astra! Sean
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