During a rainstorm, evening darkens, water dashes, sluices and shimmers, wind skirls, lightning flares and thunder crashes. I would have invoked Thor - metaphorically, not literally - but the characters are on Tahir, far from Earth. Interior illumination makes Sundaram's study feel like a cave.
Yu enters and makes it clear that she bears appalling news:
"He regarded her for a moment longer. The wind hooted." (p. 289)
Of course the wind hoots! The rainstorm and early darkness have arrived right on cue for the appalling news.
When Yu says that:
"'We are a menace to creation.'" (p. 290)
- lightning blazes, darkness descends and thunder sounds like "...monstrous wheels...," (ibid.) the wheels of a juggernaut.
The zero-zero drive threatens the universe: cosmic climate change. The Tahirians, whose stable civilization opposes the social disruption caused by interstellar exploration, have shared with Yu their mathematical proof that the interstellar drive disrupts the shared cosmic environment...
And a ruling social group can prove to its own satisfaction that it is indeed superior. What is the relationship between society and science?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The PROPER way for any society to handle science is to accept the results gained by honest scientific research. Even if they conflict with one's preferred political views. Or religious beliefs, as seen in how often Evangelical Protestants still reject evolution and an ancient Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
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