Autumn In Kith Town

Starfarers, 21.

Kenri Shaun plans to stop starfaring and to remain on Earth. As his Kith career approaches its end - or, at least, so he believes -, the Terrestrial year, appropriately, approaches its end:

"Kenri started down Aldebaran Street. A cold gust hit him; the northern hemisphere was spinning into autumn." (pp. 172-173)

Kith Town streets are lit by obsolete glowglobes because starfarers want to come home to a place that is familiar even if outmoded. Most houses are unoccupied, tended by machines, for decades. Some will remain unoccupied because their owners will not return. Even this early in the narrative, the autumn of Kith culture is prefigured.

Kith Town was introduced in Chapter 10. At that stage, the Kith traded in pure chemical elements, special feedstocks and new information but were overtaxed by the local overlord, the Vicar of Isen. The Solar System also contained Lunarites and Martians. There is reference to "Outerfolk" (p. 82) but I do not know whether these are in the outer Solar System or outside the System. (In context, probably the former.) In all cases, colonized planets change the colonists whereas:

"We starfarers - our starfaring keeps us changeless." (p. 83)