Friday, 16 December 2022

In The Enemy Stronghold

"The Plague of Masters," XII.

The vast sweep of history is composed of milliards of details such as a Terran Intelligence officer completing a mission on the isolated planet, Unan Besar. Now we come to the kind of scene that I used to enjoy in action-adventure films. Our heroes, in this case Flandry and Kemul, walk, disguised and unchallenged, through an enemy stronghold, in this case Biocontrol Central. As Flandry reflects, that they can do this demonstrates the long-term decadent sloppiness of Biocontrol. 

In UNCLE HQ, two men wearing security badges walked along a corridor toward a third man seated behind a desk. Suddenly alarms sounded. They had not known that they needed a different colour of badge to penetrate above a certain level in the building. Knowing that the alarms must apply to them, they pulled out guns and ran towards the man behind the desk who also took some measures which I don't remember. In another episode, a THRUSH double of Solo walked right into Waverley's office but did not kill him because he was after something else. I used to live for such stuff but nowadays would not value the Flandry series if it consisted only of this kind of suspense followed by fights, flights and escapes - which Anderson writes well here.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I remember that! It was a GLARING sign of how decadent and incompetent the regime was that KEMUL, of all unlikely persons, could so deeply penetrate Biocontrol Central.

Merry Christmas! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Incidentally, note that Unan Besar is ultimately SE Asian, specifically Malay, but of a pagan subvariety -- probably Balinese.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And I've speculated Unan Besar was settled by colonists descended from Balinese who shook off Islam during the Breakup following the invention of the hyperdrive.

Merry Christmas! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

"Balinese who shook off Islam"
They would not need to shake off Islam.
Bali is one of the few places in that area that is not dominated by Islam. My understanding is that Balinese religion is mostly Hindu.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Then I sit corrected! I thought Islam had been forced on Bali.

Merry Christmas! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: yes, Bali is more or less a remnant of what the Malay world was like before Islam arrived.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Much as I disagree with Buddhism and Hinduism, the former is better than Islam and I think the latter does less direct harm than the religion founded by Mohammed.

Merry Christmas! Sean