Van Rijn continues to make remarks in questionable taste at which Coya does not smile. He continually complains about how moralistic her generation is:
"Yet she could not hate an old man who loved her." (p. 654)
Personal and family relationships can overcome a lot of disagreements.
"'...in the Quetlan System we transferred to this vessel, and the yacht proceeded as if we were still aboard, and won't make any port for weeks -'" (p. 650)
The text states that money is needed to mount the kind of search that van Rijn is making. Indeed. Van Rijn can afford to cover his tracks by sending his luxurious interstellar yacht and her crew out of their way for weeks just so that his competitors will not know where he really is. That crew can loaf, relax and party for all those weeks relieved of their employer's overbearing presence and continual demands. Meanwhile van Rijn pays Ythrians to take him where he really wants to go, to a source of even greater wealth.
The quantity of material wealth that accumulates in Poul Anderson's fictional interstellar civilizations is astronomical both literally and metaphorically.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Old Nick might have been overbearing and demanding, but he never exerted those qualities in ways I would consider bad or cruel. He demanded a lot of his people--and in return rewarded them generously and had their backs whenever they needed it.
I would expect free enterprise economics, allied with FTL tech, to create enormous wealth!
Happy New Year! Sean
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