My Three Favourite Van Rijn Scenes

 

"Van Rijn stood at the border of the field, holding his great-granddaughter by the hand."

-Mirkheim, XI, p. 159.

To most people, van Rijn is a public figure: merchant, competitor, employer etc. To a very few, he is family.

"It was some time before they were outside. Van Rijn got stuck in the emergency hatch and required pushing, while his anguished basso obscenities drowning the nearing thunder."

-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT III, p. 354.

(That approaching thunder is a pathetic fallacy.)

We know, or soon learn, that van Rijn can handle himself in any physical emergency. If he were alone and stuck in a hatch, then he would waste no energy in bellowing obscenities but would bend his attention to freeing himself. However, since the younger man, Eric Wace, is present to do some pushing, van Rijn can keep up his act: a man who bellows at everything and gives every impression of incompetence - although not when it matters. Sandra Tamarin has already noticed that he:

"'...is a handy man with the tools...'" (ibid., II, p. 347)

- and commented:

"'But then, he was once a common space hand.'" (ibid.)

Decades later, van Rijn to Sandra:

"'You take the Long Trail with me!... A universe where all roads lead to roaming. Life never fails us. We fail it, unless we reach out.'"

-Mirkheim, XXI, p. 287.

I have quoted this before, the perfect send-off, similar to Flandry's closing speech in The Game of Empire. With men like these, how can mankind fail?