The Builders

The Day Of Their Return.

I think that the Elders or Ancients, Forerunners, Builders etc are mentioned as such only in The Day Of Their Return and in The Game of Empire although we are to understand that they are identical with the Chereionites who are mentioned elsewhere.

"'You're next Firstman of Ilion,' the sergeant snapped. 'Maybe last hope we got, this side of Elders returnin'.'" (2, p. 82)

"...the riders passed a fragment of wall. Glass-black, seamless, it sheened above moonlit brush and scrub. Near the top of what remained, four meters up, holes made an intricate pattern, its original purpose hard to guess. Now stars gleamed through.

"Hedin reined in, drew a cross, and muttered before he went on." (4, pp. 106-107)

Poul Anderson does not have to tell us the original purpose of the holes in the wall. The stars gleaming through them are sufficiently significant or symbolic. Hedin explains vaguely that the fragment of wall is "'Kind of a symbol...'" (p. 107) But of what? He elaborates:

some intelligent beings had been on Aeneas millions of years previously;

they were not natives;

there are similar traces on other planets.

He thinks that it is unreasonable to suppose that these beings became extinct. However, that is at least possible. Unanswered questions: Where did they come from? Why did they depart? Did they "'...go onward...'" (ibid.) elsewhere? That third is the kind of proposition that is formulated as a question but with an assumed affirmative answer. Since we have discussed Hedin before, we can move on to 7 where Chunderban Desai sees a "...section of glassy iridescence..." (p. 120) incorporated into the University wall and reflects that:

"That part is older than humanity." (ibid.)

At the University, Desai speaks with Tatiana Thane who expresses the same kind of vague hopes as Hedin. A possibility is put forward, then every alternative to it is dismissed.