The original team is due to depart for Babur the following day so Chee visits Adzel in his hotel at Terraport. They have not seen each other for three years:
"'Chee Lan!' he boomed in Anglic. 'What a splendid surprise. Come in, my dear, come in.'" (p. 39)
Trivial dialogue but I had not remembered it and it now seems important to notice such details not only because this novel is a sequel to the trader team tetralogy ("The Trouble Twisters," "Day of Burning," Satan's World and "Lodestar") but also because it is the last work that will feature any of these characters.
It might have seemed that, since van Rijn etc are in The Technic Civilization, Volumes I-III, then the Saga is not as yet a future history. However, Volume I begins long before their births and Volume III ends long after their deaths. They appear only in the first of the six installments collected in Volume III.
This chapter ends both with a recapture of the past and with an acknowledgment that it is indeed the past:
"'And so we fare forth again, we three and our ship, like our young days come back,' Adzel sighed, 'except that this time our mission is not into the hopeful yonder.'" (p. 46)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Strictly speaking, the chronologically earlier Technic stories DO comprise future history. Old Nick and his Trader Team lived about four hundred years in our future.
Ad astra! Sean
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