The Adventures Of The First Trade Pioneer Crew

There could have been a collection of stories about the missions of Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew led by David Falkayn but Poul Anderson did not write his Technic History to any predictable formula. The only routine mission that we read about is the crew's first, recounted in Part III of The Trouble Twisters. When, in the original order of publication, we next read about the crew, in Satan's World, they have a number of such missions behind them but are now conducting a different kind of investigation within the Solar System. This investigation reveals a threat to Technic civilization which requires the direct involvement of van Rijn and also sends the members of the crew in different directions. At the end of this novel, the crew members are rich enough to stop pioneering but continue to do so anyway so their situation has fundamentally changed. Their next appearance, in Mirkheim, is set years after the crew has disbanded and the narrative has skipped over a period when van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya Conyon, had joined the team. They are reassembled but for a different purpose. The Earth Book of Stormgate presents "Day of Burning," which recounts not a routine mission but an emergency rescue operation, and "Lodestar," which features van Rijn, Coya and the team but again does not describe any routine mission. And that is all there is. In "Day of Burning," Falkayn says that he has seen planets devastated by all-out nuclear strikes so he has seen a great deal that we have not been told about.