Thursday, 13 February 2025

Endings

The Boat Of A Million Years, XVIII, 14-16.

There is an underlying implicit drama in sub-chapter 14. When they met centuries ago, Aliyat tried to get Hanno killed. Now he is rescuing her. So how will they interact? However, as it happens, she is too physically incapacitated for there to be much conversation on this occasion.

Hanno will phase out his various current aliases. They will die or move away etc. He has several well-funded bolt-holes around the world into which he and his companions can disappear. I think that this sufficiently answers the question of how he evades the surveillance arranged by Senator Moriarty. Maybe there are going to be two or even three Moriarty Presidencies? Maybe that is going to be the end of the United States as Hanno apocalyptically imagines? 

The ending of this chapter resembles the ending of a novel:

"...she had guided him in trying to imagine what might happen..." (16, p. 454)

That could have been an open ending or could lead into a sequel. In fact, it leads into Chapter XIX beginning on the facing page with Hanno on Jupiter... Imagine what might happen...

Where next? We cannot reread Chapter XIX, having reread it before Chapters I-XVIII. But there is another long late novel featuring STL interstellar travel. We might take another look at Starfarers.

For the rest of this evening, I might try to get back to a book about my super-guru, Krishnamurti.

2 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

Depends on the surveillance. If it's an AI program with genetic-detection sensors widely distributed...

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

While your suggestion about Hanno's prearranged boltholes "might" temporarily account for how he and the other Survivors evaded Moriarty's sleuths, Stirling's contrary suggestion makes me think that will be increasingly harder to do.

Ad astra! Sean