There are no herds of large animals on the islands but the ocean swarms with schools of fish in their hundreds of thousands. Fish as large as whales graze the weed mats. (We remember Avalon.) The single large moon raises tides of two or three meters and shells litter a beach below high-water mark. The colonists must have gathered most of their food from the ocean. Are we beginning to guess where the colonists have gone? (I didn't, on the first reading.)
A cliff overlooks a circular bay, kilometers across, with a river flowing in from the highlands and only a narrow passage out to the ocean. Rocks, boulders and shells cover the long, wide, sandy beach. The spaceboat lands on the cliff so that the Kithmen can explore the highlands for signs of farming or mining - they might also encounter whatever killed the colonists. The cool air smells of salt, iodine and decay.
Read quickly, the story races past like a short film or TV episode whereas, if we press the pause button, then we appreciate scenes like the empty city and the placid bay.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I know I did not guess what happened to the colonists of this planet the first time I read "The Horn of Time the Hunter"!
I used to have a paperback copy of THE HORN OF TIME with the Salvador Dali style melted clock.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is my copy.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I discarded that copy after Gregg Press reprinted THE HORN OF TIME and many others of the stories of Anderson in good, high quality hardbacks some 42 years ago. I wanted to have my collection of Anderson's works in LASTING editions.
Ad astra! Sean
Though surface-based fishing is a far more efficient way to harvest the sea than swimming around trying to compete with predators that evolved for it. Just for starters, you can -preserve- what you catch. Plus on land you’re safe from the sharks.
Just as a pair of fins you can make in half an hour are more efficient than trying to evolve fins.
This is why humans haven’t evolved much in the last 80,000 years.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Dang! I wish I had thought of those points during any of the times I had read "The Horn of Time the Hunter"! I tend to get lost in the sweep and flow of any story that grips me, failing to look more deeply.
Ad astra! Sean
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