Pathetic fallacy abounds. Tied up below decks in a galley, Argens hears the Herd capture the human camp. Then:
"I heard the Ai Chun wallow past my prison, bound ashore. I sat in darkness and heard the rain begin." (p. 83)
Argens' incarceration in darkness and the beginning of the rain coincide, appropriately, with the subjugation of humanity. This continues. Leaving the galley, Argens and his guard descend:
"...to a canoe, through a lashing blindness of rain and wind to the beach. Day had now come, tinting the driven spears of water as if with blood." (ibid.)
This is all good descriptive and atmospheric stuff: blindness, blood and the wind that is our constant companion in many Andersonian texts. The present text continues:
"My goggles were blinkered with storm; I shoved them onto my forehead and squinted through red murk. I couldn't see our spaceship. The headland where our compound stood was a dim bulk on my left. No one was visible except my giant guard and the half dozen canoe paddlers." (ibid.)
Through the redness that is like blood, Argens sees neither the spaceship nor the compound but only his captors. All is lost...
Well, not everything. Next we read a characteristic Andersonian fight and escape scene. Prodded and enraged, Argens grabs his guard's knife and stabs him with it, then is chased through bawling thunder and hissing rain but rescued by his allies, the Pack.
How many captured Anderson heroes assault a guard and escape?
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