"Lodestar" is a mystery story. The mystery is: Where and how does the Supermetals company acquire the industrially valuable supermetals that it sells within Technic civilization? If the supermetals are produced artificially, then Supermetals represents a civilization that is so technologically superior that it does not need to sell anything to anyone in Technic civilization but that nevertheless wants to conceal its very existence. That would be an extremely disturbing conclusion to reach. Van Rijn investigates. Is there a planet that was massive enough to survive a supernova? Such a planet would be coated with supermetals. If there is such a planet, then is anyone mining it? If anyone is, then that would explain Supermetals. Two other people or groups of people are ahead of van Rijn. First, Coya Conyon knows that, ten years previously, David Falkayn had investigated the possibility of a supermetals-coated planet. Therefore, he might be behind Supermetals. Secondly, we the readers know that, ten years previously, Falkayn had begun to speculate along certain lines...which we now realise must have led in this direction. Thus, when van Rijn confirms his suspicions, we have been way ahead of him.
Coya says:
"'It took a genius to think this might be!'
"She grew aware of van Rijn's eyes upon her." (pp. 667-678)
Does he think she means he is the genius? He probably suspects more. In fact, Poul Anderson is praising his editor/publisher, John W. Campbell, who had suggested the Lodestar/Mirkheim idea to him.
No comments:
Post a Comment