Awaiian mountains falling below the horizon are blue-gray;
the sky is turquoise;
the sea is sapphire, cobalt and indigo;
lacing foam, towering clouds and skimming gulls are white;
a hundred ships with sails and banners bedeck the waves over the edge of the world;
the flagship is teak and bronze, six-masted and myriad-crewed;
the breeze sings and thrums;
there are odors of pitch and salt;
this is "The power and pride of Oceania..." (p. 361)
We have met pride, pomp and power before. See here.
OK. They are on their way to wage war.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I think we see some of that pride and power in the descriptions given us of Admiralty Center in THE REBEL WORLDS and WE CLAIM THESE STARS, along with Flandry's anxious reflections on how precarious that pride and power was.
And we see mention of somewhat similar descriptions of pride, power, and pomp in Chapter 1 of ENSIGN FLANDRY, with some reflections by Lord Hauksberg, after his wife said Birthday USED to mean something: "Hauksberg cast his mind back over history. She was right. Fathers had taken their sons outdoors when twilight ended parades and feasts; they had pointed to the early stars and said,--Look yonder. Those are ours. We believe that as many as four million lie within the Imperial domain. Certainly a hundred thousand know us daily, obey us, pay tribute to us, and get peace and the wealth of peace in return. Our ancestors did that. Keep the faith."
Ad astra! Sean
Ad astra! Sean
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