The War of Asterite Independence is over quickly for us readers, introduced and concluded in a single story, but not for the asterites:
"...the despair of the war years." (p. 119)
And the war does not end as we expect. There is a stable group of asteroids in each of the two Trojan points in the Jovian orbit, sixty degrees before and behind Jupiter. The peace treaty lets North America keep the leading Trojan group while the new Asterite Republic gets only the trailing group. As conditions continue to deteriorate in North America, the government of that continent puts more economic pressure on those asterites whom it still governs. The issues that the war was fought over have not been resolved. I will have to reread this story to the end to get all its ramifications.
The main leading Trojan asteroid, Odysseus, has a Lake Circe and a "...zoo island, Aeaea..." (p. 120) The other large asteroids in this group are Hector, Achilles, Nestor, Agamemnon and Ajax. These are powerful mythological references, particularly in the wake of the film, The Odyssey.
Don and Avis Bell have a domestic staff of ten, including a cook and a butler, in their sealed house on Mount Ida above the Oddyssean atmosphere. I like the asterite attitude explained by Don Bell. The pioneers had had to be both self-reliant and mutually helpful. The successful felt obliged to employ the unsuccessful who accepted employment because all work contributed to survival and improvement. If I were there, then, lacking entrepreneurial skills, I would willingly work as a butler.
The Milky Way is always with us:
"Stars crowded the blackness, unwinking and winter-cold; the Milky Way girdled the universe with diamond dust; Jupiter blazed enormous, not many astronomical units to port." (p. 95)
From the waist-height dome atop the Bell house:
"When the sun happened to be away, as it was at the moment, every spot overhead was diademmed with stars, nebulae, Milky Way and sister galaxies." (p. 126)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The politicians of the North American federation exasperate me! That increased pressure placed on NA's surviving possessions in the asteroids runs the perfectly obvious risk of alienating once loyal asterites. The sensible and realistic policy would be to govern and tax lightly. Nor do I believe a heavy-handed policy would have squeezed that much money from the Trojans. Free trade with NA and the rest of Earth by the Trojan asteroids would have been far more profitable.
Politicians never seem to learn but persist in repeating the same old mistakes. Oh, well, blundering IWHBD.
Ad astra! Sean
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