Aycharaych Before Or After

Years ago, second-hand bookseller Pete Pinto suggested to Poul Anderson that Dominic Flandry's main adversary, the universal telepath and last surviving Chereionite, Aycharaych, should return but in an Aycharaych novel, not in a Flandry novel. I agreed. Such a novel could have been about Aycharaych's earlier life and, in that case, would not have needed to tell us whether he had survived the Flandry-ordered bombardment of Chereion. But suppose he did survive. What would have happened then? Although he would no longer be motivated to work for Merseia, I accept the combox argument that the bombardment of his home planet would have demotivated him from offering his services instead to Merseia's enemy, the Terran Empire.

Aycharaych's subsequent life would have had to involve some reflection on his earlier career and on the history of Chereion. I still think that a meeting with that student of Ancient artefacts, Axor, would be one possibility although not through the agency of Terran Intelligence.

I cannot imagine sequels. My brain conjures only absurdities, e.g., Aycharaych fleeing outside known space and finding Nicholas van Rijn in suspended animation, which Anderson definitely would not have written. Poul Anderson combined creative imagination with historical plausibility. Although he never showed us the death of any major character, it is a given that such characters are long dead in later periods when others come forward:

van Rijn and Falkayn

Argos

Christopher Holm and Philippe Rochefort

Flandry and Aycharaych

Roan Tom

Daven Laure

(Not a complete list.)

I have stopped writing about Aycharaych because inspiration has dried up.