Berserk In An Ice Age

A Stone In Heaven, I-II. 

The previous post (see the above link) focused on the fourteen-page build-up to Admiral Flandry and therefore skipped over the drama of Chapter I: an avalanche destroys the Shrine, the tomb of Kulembarach, and kills Yewwl's husband and children. A Ramnuan responds to grief by going berserk. That sounds terrible. On the other hand, the Ramnuans have never had wars, armies or states because a single soldier who lost a comrade would run amok. Maybe that going berserk is a beneficial trait after all, as Abrams suggests? Poul Anderson always presents genuinely alien biologies, psychologies and sociologies.

The Ramunam Ice Age is technologically preventable but the Duke of Hermes says no so Abrams will go to Terra to appeal to Flandry. In II, she travels to Williams Field (scroll down) on Hermes, then goes into Starfall. These places are known to us. She stays with the Runebergs, a familiar surname. This chapter also introduces her enemy, the current Duke. The plot thickens.