Stepha Carls, the young woman rescued by Falkayn and Adzel, speaks accented Anglic. Her people have been on Ikrananka for four hundred local years, seventy-five Terrestrial. Five hundred prospective colonists were marooned by a squadron from the Pirate Suns which stole their large spaceship. The Pirate Suns are mentioned nowhere else in the Technic History. Adzel says that the Polesotechnic League has put a stop to their activities. Any prospective Technic historian could expand on the role of the Pirate Suns and would be free to create de novo.
Falkayn:
"...was born and bred an aristocrat on a planet where they still needed soldiers. Boyhood training took over in him." (p. 87)
Does that fit with Hermes as described in Mirkheim?
In the second David Falkayn story, "A Sun Invisible," Falkayn deals with a Jaleelan called Beljagor. When the first three Falkayn stories were collected as The Trouble Twisters, the third story, "The Trouble Twisters," was amended slightly to inform us that:
"In some respects [Chee Lan] was not unlike Master Beljagor." (p. 91)
However, in The Technic Civilization Saga, "A Sun Invisible" is the seventh of eleven works collected in Volume I whereas "The Trouble Twisters" is the second of seven works collected in Volume II so the reference to Beljagor might have become somewhat obscure.
Chee Lan informs her shipmates that they have rescued Stepha not, as they thought, from bandits but from soldiers of the Emperor that they had come to Ikranaka to do business with. The plot thickens. That Falkayn and Stepha are of the same species does not necessarily mean that they will wind up on the same side.
1 comment:
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think we can understand the Pirate Suns mentioned in "Trouble Twisters" as a reference to the Addercops mentioned in "Hiding Place."
That bit about David Falkayn coming from a planet which still needed soldiers does conflict from what we learn in MIRKHEIM. For at least the first three or four decades of his life Hermes was enjoying a period of prolonged peace and prosperity.
But I can see Hermetian aristocrats undergoing at least basic military training and studies during their boyhoods. The military services has been considered a traditional career in many aristocracies. As was the case for David's older brother Michael Falkayn.
Chee Lan was PSYCHOLOGICALLY like Beljagor in both of them being fiery and hot tempered. Except for being small they did not look at all like each other.
Ad astra! Sean
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