A Series Within A History

In Poul Anderson's three-story Nicholas van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars, the unnamed first person narrator of the third story, "The Master Key," describes van Rijn as:

"...the single-handed conqueror of Borthu, Diomedes, and t'Kela!"

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1966), pp. 115-159 AT p. 121.

Borthu is in the first story, "Hiding Place." Diomedes is in the van Rijn novel, The Man Who Counts. T'Kela is in the second story, "Territory." Further, "Territory" is preceded by an extract from the earliest van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit." Thus, Trader... collects three van Rijn instalments and refers to two others. A substantial van Rijn series had already accumulated without as yet any reference to the many other events that were to happen before, during and after van Rijn's lifetime. "Hiding Place," the first of three instalments in Trader... becomes the last of eleven in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method.

We are currently rereading "Territory" and alternating between multi-cosmic comparisons and concentration on specific narrative details like the rotation period and axial tilt of t'Kela.