Partly because some important facts are being concealed from him, Jack Havig needs a lot of time to learn what is wrong with Caleb Wallis's time traveling organization, the Eyrie. As Havig says to Robert Anderson:
"'Think, Doc. Recall how intelligent men like, well, Bertrand Russell or Henry Wallace took extensive tours of Stalin's Russia, and came home to report that it did have its problems but those had been exaggerated and were entirely due to extraneous factors and a benevolent government was coping with everything. Don't forget, either, the chances are that most of their guides did think this, and were in full sincerity obeying instructions to shield a foreign visitor from what he might misinterpret.'" (p. 88)
This is one of my fears for the future: a repeat of Russia, friends and comrades urging us to support a dictatorship, even denying that it is a dictatorship or claiming that it is "Only for the duration..." See More Latin. But I think that a mere collapse of the present system is much more probable. Can we expect a continued Chaos with no dawn of Technic civilization, a Time of Troubles with no Manuel Argos or a Long Night with no later civilizations, a negative Technic History?
Meanwhile, Wallis turns out to be a white supremacist and Hitler admirer who threatens Havig with torture and mutilation if he does not cooperate. Enough said. In fact, way more than enough said.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! Wallis was a bad man with very bad ideas, never mind his very real abilities and talents. It was right of Havig to overthrow him and take over the Eyrie.
An alarming notion, a NEGATIVE Technic history! No end to the Chaos, no Poleostechnic League, no Manuel Argos, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
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