Terra In "The Star Plunderer"

"The Star Plunderer."

As the narrative opens, the first person narrator and his companion, Kathryn, are engaged in a gun battle with the Baldics, more specifically, with the Gorzuni. The introduction has informed us that the narrator is John Henry Reeves and that, at least by the time he writes his Memoirs, of which we read Chapter V, Reeves will be a Rear Admiral in the Imperial Solar Navy. 

Reeves and Kathryn are defending "...poor devastated Terra..." (p. 327) which the Baldics have sacked twice in fifteen years so what does Reeves tell us about Terra? He shoots from behind a fragment of wall which, because it is "...higher than the rest...," resembles "...a single tooth left in a dead man's jaw." (p. 327) With Terra as the skull? Anderson's descriptions are always apt. 

Long grass has grown around a ruined house. A fresh wind rustles grass and trees and sends "...clouds across a sunny summer sky..." (p. 328) This time there is a contrast between peaceful nature and warring sophonts. 

A unit of the Commonwealth Navy has made its last resistance in an estate which is now "...smashed and burning..." (p. 329) Gorzuni creep through trampled gardens toward the outbuilding defended by Reeves and Kathryn whom they capture.

When prisoners are herded into a spaceship after dark, it is "...like a scene from some ancient hell..." (p. 330) The description is again appropriate. First death, now hell. Hell is night, burning houses and horned guards kicking human prisoners. Wind blows heat from a flaming house into their faces so that the prisoners turn away. (The wind is always active in Anderson's descriptions.)

Terra has been conquered, her armies have been scattered, cities have been ravaged and human beings have been hunted through streets, hills and space. Only fragments of the Navy still resist. Looters and slave raiders make Terra their "...happy hunting ground..." (p. 331) The prisoners are crammed into cells and transported away.

Later is the triumphant return. The ship, renamed Revenge, now has Manuel Argos as Captain and Reeves as First Mate:

"It was winter in Earth's northern hemisphere when the Revenge came home." (p. 60)

Reeves crunches snow underfoot as his breath smokes under a blue sky. Bearded, long-haired men, now the best fighters in the Galaxy, kneel and kiss the snow, then stand to look at hills, sky, icy trees and a hovering crow. Two features seem appropriate for the founding of Manuel's Empire: not spring but winter and a bird that symbolizes transformation but also death.

(Incidentally, we are interested to learn that the remnant of the Commonwealth Navy has a "...secret base on Mercury..." (p. 361))