"Van Rijn stood at the border of the field, holding his great-granddaughter by the hand."
-Mirkheim, XI, p. 159)
After all that we have read about Nicholas van Rijn on Earth, on other planets and in space, here we see him in the most domestic of situations as he and his great-granddaughter, Juanita, greet her father on his return to Earth from Babur and Mirkheim.
And, when Juanita's mother had been young, van Rijn:
"...would roll roaring into her parents' home, toss her to the ceiling, half-bury her under presents from a score of planets, tell her extravagant stories and take her out on a sailboat or to a live performance or, later on, around most of the Solar System...."
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 631-682 AT p. 641.
We know that daily life continues in the Solar Commonwealth and we would like to see more of it.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's a pity we don't have many similar details about the family and descendants of Dominic Flandry. We've "met" two of his illegitimate children: Dominic Hazeltine and Diana Crowfeather. And his father was a space captain and minor noble, his mother an opera singer.
Ad astra! Sean
Van Rijn strikes me as the sort of guy who'd be an impossible mate for a woman but a wonderful granddad or uncle for a kid.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha, I agree! Albeit I read somewhere that Sandra Tamarin tried to persuade Old Nick to marry here.
Ad astra! Sean
Oops! I meant "her," not "here."
Sean
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