Paths That Might Have Been

"The Hall of the Mountain King," CHAPTER NINE.

"'I scent a path that might have been,' Spots mused over a second drink. 'If the Jotok had never come to Kzin-home, would we ever have been more than wandering hunters, with castle-dwelling ranchers as the height of our civilization? My liver trembles with ambiguity - perhaps that would have been best?'" (p. 80)

The innermost part of a kzin is his liver. This must be remembered by any later contributor to the MKW series.

Any interstellar contact might not have happened. On a single planetary surface, perhaps, eventual contact is inevitable. Nevertheless, we can imagine:

the American continents without European invaders (SM Stirling, Conquistador);

Ireland without the Normans or British (An Irishman said to me, "The only good thing England did for Ireland was, if England hadn't been there, we'd've had the French or Spanish over and they'd've been worse!");

Britain without Scoti, Romans, Norse, Angles, Saxons, Jutes or Normans;

India without Aryans, Muslims or British;

China and Japan without foreign devils.

In the following chapter, Shigehero Hirose thinks about the time:

"...before Nippon was opened to the West..." (p. 86)

We cannot go back but we can scent other paths.