Three Centuries Later

Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind (New York, 1973).

This novel plunges into midst of things, into the middle of a conversation and at a time of impending war. Daniel Holm addresses his son. We infer from Holm's name that he is a human being and this inference is correct although names will shortly become less definitive. Holm's son - names to be disclosed soon - uses two Planha terms: "Khruaths" and "choth." "Khruath" is a Planha word given an Anglic plural form. We have been tracking choths (Anglic plural) through the preceding short stories but have not encountered Khruaths before. These democratic institutions are discussed in previous posts and explained here. Nor have the preceding stories shown us any human members of choths. However, the younger man says that he will go to his choth because Khruaths are being called. He is both Chris Holm and Arinnian, a member both of a human family and of an Ythrian choth.

Avalonian Anglic pronunciation is already influenced by Planha. In addition, when Chris/Arinnian speaks of his choth, he sounds as if he is translating Ythrian thoughts for human hearers.

Choths have been accepting human members for a hundred years and human recruitment is accelerating. According to Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, three centuries separate the two short stories about the colonization of Avalon from this novel. A lot has happened. In fact, the Terran Empire has replaced the Solar Commonwealth and Avalon is now part of the Domain of Ythri.

The People Of The Wind will at last give us a reasonably detailed account of what choths are.