The Anvardi are defeated and have pledged allegiance. The Empire is to be rebuilt. Belgotai has found fighting among the stars. Climate engineers will end the artificially induced Ice Age on Earth and the planet will be recivilized. Saunders and the Empress Taury revisit Sol one last time before the Imperial capital is moved to the central Polarian System. Appropriately, this pause in the action is marked by an absence of wind:
"It was quiet, quiet, sound seemed to have frozen to death in the bitter windless cold." (CHAPTER SIX, p. 274)
Twice previously I have quoted Taury's reminiscence about "...the days when we fought with our own hands..." (see here)
For her, this is a pause before the rebuilding of the Empire. For Saunders, it turns out to be merely an interval before the next stage in his "flight without end."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And this would have been an appropriate and logical place for ending "Flight." While I think the actual conclusion of the story weak when rationally examined, I can only commend Anderson for trying for a bolder, more dramatic end to the tale. "Flight to Forever" shows both Anderson's strengths as a writer and certain flaws and weaknesses as an author that he would grow out of by 1958-59.
Ad astra! Sean
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