Sunday 19 July 2020

Undeclared War: Phase 2

"Iron," 20.

From what Kam overheard while a prisoner, Saxtorph deduces that a kzinti space tug waits uncrewed in orbit to shunt an approaching displaced asteroid. It follows that Saxtorph and his crew can approach under cover of the asteroid to hijack the tug. The author sets up conditions to favor his principal protagonists and the next phase of this local war begins.

During a hours-long spacesuited transit to the tug, Dorcas sees:

"...the stars, Milky Way, nebulae, sister galaxies, glory upon glory." (p. 155)

This is not a description of the Milky Way, just a reference to it. We have had a glory of suns before. We could also catalogue references to sister galaxies. They are seen from space within the Milky Way and Poul Anderson wrote four novels in which there is travel between galaxies.

Dorcas gets a fix on a planet with "...her diriscope..." (p. 154) but I cannot find "diriscope" anywhere.

The universe beckons.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And there are too many who can't or won't raise their thoughts to higher or other matters than their own, immediate, personal matters or concerns. Granted that most of us HAVE to think like that, it would be good if we sometimes thought of higher matters as well.

Ad astra! Sean