(Remember, this is Poul Anderson writing a short story set within Jerry Pournelle's future history.)
When the colonel visits his men who have been hospitalized by the Red Plague, one of them commends him as "'...a Christian.'" (p. 60) Since this "Christian" colonel is also our viewpoint character and first person narrator, we are able to read his reflections:
he had left the Kirk before leaving his home planet of Covenant;
Kirk, like the Covenant accent, is no longer with him;
yet he still dreams of his parents and -
"Maybe my heritage was more than a stubborn mind and a rawboned height. Maybe a spirit had quietly survived within me, and on Covenant would survive the Empire. I'd like to believe that." (p. 60)
"...survive the Empire..." takes us right back to Nyanza, Vixen, Denniza... all those planets that Dominic Flandry hopes will survive the Terran Empire. Some passages and phrases cross over the timelines.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
It's been a long time since I last read "The Deserter," so I don't remember much, if anything, about the planet Covenant. It's reasonable to think it was originally settled by Scottish Presbyterians with a Calvinist theology. Perhaps by those with a strict TULIP view of Calvinism.
Yes, terms like "survive the Empire" or the "Long Night" are very resonant! And I've also thought just now of the ominous "Evening on Terra," which begins Chapter 1 of ENSIGN FLANDRY.
And of how Flandry told Kit in WE CLAIM THESE STARS that the Empire would one day become a fire side legend.
Ad astra! Sean
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