We are reviewing the stories in the sequence that we loosely label as the Directorate future history. Rereading "The Alien Enemy," I am struck by an example of what I have called an Andersonian moment of realization:
"...at once, like a blow to the guts...I saw the face of the alien enemy." (p. 81)
The first person narrator has been told and shown evidence that alien spaceships, maybe with an FTL drive, had attacked the human colony on the inhospitable planet, Sibylla, and had nuked its only city. But no one knows who these aliens were and they have not been seen or heard of since. How can the narrator suddenly realize who they were? He can't. They don't exist. He can and does suddenly realize that an elaborate hoax has been perpetrated. But we have posted quite a lot about Sibylla before!
It is time for me to meditate in good time before going out to the Gregson Institute this evening.
1 comment:
Yeah, they're staring at a dead end and need to be rescued.
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