Five Small Spaceship Crews In Two Future Histories

(i) Two Stellar Union Coordinators in the Psychotechnic History.

(ii) The first trade pioneer crew in the Polesotechnic League period of the Technic History.

(iii) A Terran Naval Lieutenant and his crew of two in the early Imperial period.

(iv) A Terran Intelligence agent and his two companions in the late Imperial period.

(v) A Ranger of the Commonalty and his ship's computer in a post-Technic period.

These accounts include two Wodenites, two Cynthians, two other aliens, two conscious computer systems and six human beings.

(ii) Nicholas van Rijn, founding the first trade pioneer crew, tells David Falkayn that the crew should be three because he cannot afford any more and that they should be of different species because:

"'Different talents, you see, also not so much nerve-scratching when cooped together.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, The Trouble Twisters (New York, June 1967), pp. 99-190 AT p. 112.

(i) These same two reasons are cited for mixed-species crews in the Stellar Coordination Service, with the second point expressed as follows:

"Homo sapiens is a wolfish creature; two of him can end with ripping each other apart, on an indefinitely long voyage in as cramped a shell as this."

-"The Pirate," p. 100.

Wolfish? Surely not when they are "integrate"? Trevelyan and the Reardonite, Smokesmith, have just finished saying that Murdoch's crew, which they are following, are:

"'...quite unintegrate...'" (ibid.);

"'...hard cases...'" (ibid.);

"'...several nonhumans from raptor cultures...'" (ibid.)

But human beings like Trevelyan himself are "wolfish"? There does not seem to be much difference between "integrate" and "unintegrate." This idea is not thought out well enough.