In The Gaps

The Fleet Of Stars, 1.

OK. We are checking what happens in the conversational pauses and we know that this always bears fruit in works by Poul Anderson.

"They were silent for a bit. The sunset flared brighter. A flight of cormorants winged across it." (p. 4)

That was good. Not what we expected but good.

"She caught her breath. The sunset light filled suddenly widened eyes." (p. 6)

So far, the sunset is a major theme.

Shortly after this, Guthrie speaks with distaste about the tame lives of human beings in the inner Solar System:

"'They -' Again he stopped to find words. The wind, already cooling, rustled the leaves above them." (ibid.)

"Cooling" is appropriate!

Further on:

"She stared into the sunset. It was swiftly losing color, the sky above the clouds going from blue to violet." (p. 9)

The sunset is back.

The next time Guthrie pauses:

"The last hues drained from the clouds, and dusk thickened with subtropical haste. She drew her cloak about her against the wind. He ignored it." (p. 10)

Sunset and wind come together.

Another pause:

"Guthrie was mute for another while. Stars were appearing now in the west as well as the east. Among them he recognized Sol..." (p. 12)

After some further reflections but without any further speech:

"He rose. Light from above, in this clear air, and light cast off the sea were ample to find one's way by. 'Let's go home,' he proposed." (ibid.)

A lesser writer would have told us what they said and nothing else.

One of Guthrie's remarks resonates:

"'I can hope that in the end, maybe a hundred years from tonight, my download will come back here and get reborn.'" (ibid.)

"'Every end,' Wagoner wrote on the wall of his cell on the last day, 'is a new beginning. Perhaps in a thousand years my Earthmen will come home again. Or in two thousand, or four, if they still remember home then. They'll come back, yes; but I hope they won't stay. I pray they will not stay."

-James Blish, They Shall Have Stars IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), pp. 7-129 AT CODA, p. 129.

To quote a Star Trek film poster, although to nobler effect, "The adventure continues."