Space, Time And History

1 January 1956 was my seventh birthday. In that year, Poul Anderson's first Nicholas van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit," was published. In September of that year, I started to attend a boarding school in Scotland. (I have already referred to a spatial location, somewhere in Scotland, and to a time - but this is the time of our experience, not of physicists or science fiction writers.)

As yet unaware of adult prose sf, I read comic strips either featuring "spacemen" (men in spacesuits) or set, as I put it at the time, "before spaceships were invented." Little did I know that Nicholas van Rijn existed and was a "spaceman" not only because he traveled through space but also because, specifically in "Margin of Profit," he dons a spacesuit and goes EVA.

I also read the Classics Illustrated adaptation of The Time Machine and, later, a short story in which a time traveler changed the course of past events. Later again, I reasoned that changing the past was impossible until Poul Anderson's Guardians Of Time persuaded me otherwise in the early 1960s, by which time I was at a boarding school in the Republic of Ireland. Now, of course, I realize that mutable and immutable pasts are equally valid time travel premises and that Anderson wrote definitively about both.

Thus, I knew of alternative histories generated by time travelers but did not yet suspect that such histories might coexist with ours in parallel timelines not generated by any extra-temporal interventions. In one sense, alternative history fiction, also written by Anderson, accurately reflects our experience. We are continually choosing between alternatives and reconsidering or regretting past choices. Scientists no longer favor causal determinism. However, even if it were the case that, when I choose between options A and B, I am causally determined to choose A, not B, it would also still be the case that I would need to make the choice in order to learn the choice. I might have inhabited a universe where I had been causally determined to choose B, not A.

Even if alternative histories do not physically exist in parallel timelines, we are conceptually surrounded by them in every decision-making process. If I had died in a car accident in 1967 before starting University, then:

decades of my life and experience would not have occurred;
my daughter and granddaughter would not exist;
Sheila would have married someone else and had other children and would now be living somewhere else;
our son in law would have moved to the Lancaster district but would not have met our daughter;
other people would have done all the jobs that I have worked in;
this blog would not exist;
someone else would now be living at 44, Blades St, Lancaster.

These are, or at least were, real possibilities. And some people in those other possible worlds would speculate about alternative histories. We recognize SM Stirling's Eric von Shrakenberg as a man who would willingly serve a better cause if he had been born in a different timeline.

Poul Anderson's Martians: Owlies, Hordes And Conquerors

Searching the blog for physical descriptions of Poul Anderson's Martians, I found this post that compares two of Anderson's Martian races. I remarked somewhere that, like ERB's green Martians, the Martians of the Technic History have social units called "hordes." However, I cannot find that post now so let me merely repeat the remark here.

That leaves only the Martians of The War Of Two Worlds, the most humanoid of Anderson's Martian races. Again, I am sure that I would have listed their physical characteristics in an earlier post but cannot easily find it so:

long straight legs;
lean waist and arms;
very broad chest and shoulders;
hairless brown skin;
high cheekbones;
domed forehead;
narrow chin;
long pointed ears;
small flat nose;
mobile, human-like mouth;
large slanted golden eyes;
small antennae.

An sf cliche? Sounding more like a man adapted to Mars than an independently evolved organism? Nevertheless, these particular Martians serve their purpose in this early novel.

Margin Of Profit: Conclusion

Definitely the last post for 2014, folks! Poul Anderson's texts keep amazing us, or at least me, with how much can be drawn out of them but it will be good to take a break. I never know whether I have reached the end of reflections on the History of Technic Civilization. The attached image, a cover for Trader To The Stars, seems to show van Rijn's Mercury capturing the Borthudian Gantok in "Margin of Profit"?

"...the Borthudian frigate...was a darkling shark-form, only half the tonnage of the dumpy merchantman but with gun turrets etched against remote star-clouds."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 163.

Although I think that Rise Of The Polesotechnic League would be a more appropriate title for Volume I of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, I increasingly appreciate the pertinence of The Van Rijn Method.

Van Rin tells Torres to "'...pull us up quick...'" (p. 167) but, as we read on, the immediately following "...reversion to normal state..." (ibid.) is described as the Borthudian's "...last, desperate move, killing his oscillations, dropping solidly back into the ordinary condition of things..." (p. 168), out of hyperspace. Pulling apart so quickly would have caused stresses in the linking force-beams that, in turn, would have destroyed both ships. However, the Terran ship has "...a detector coupled to an automatic cutoff, for just this possibility." (ibid.) In that case, why does van Rijn say "'...pull us up quick...'"? Readers without technical backgrounds must struggle with the technicalities, especially when these include technologies like, e.g., hyperspace and tractor and pressor beams, that do not yet exist, although Anderson writes as if he is familiar with them.

In normal space, Mercury's beams hold Gantok so close that the latter's weapons cannot be brought to bear. If the Borthudians try to board, a small pressor can flick them into space. I did not think of these possibilities but Anderson and van Rijn address them in any case. While going out onto the hull to make a repair, van Rijn:

"...was surrounded by a darkness-whitening star-blaze." (p. 166)

Long may we travel through space with van Rijn, Falkayn and Flandry.

"A Glory Of Suns"

"Heaven was darkness filled with a glory of suns. Viewscreens framed the spilling silver of the Milky Way, ruby spark of Antares, curling edge of a nebula limned by the glare of an enmeshed star. Brightest in vision stood Borthu's, yellow as minted gold."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 160.

Recent posts have summarized:

the problem in "Margin of Profit";
suggested solutions;
van Rijn's solution.

However, this does not exhaust the story as the above quotation demonstrates. Anderson often describes space and stars as seen from a spaceship, mentioning familiar details like nebulae and the Milky Way. However, the descriptions are always fresh. In this passage, the phrase, "...a glory of suns...," replaces "...a wilderness of stars..." which we have encountered several times before. See here and here.

I will continue rereading "Margin of Profit" and will then revisit "Hiding Place" which also has Nick van Rijn in action in space instead of receiving reports from subordinates in the Winged Cross.

Margin Of Profit: The Solution

See here and here.

Each completed round trip to Antares makes an average thirty per cent profit, although the Borthudians currently capture fifteen percent of the ships that travel that route. Nicholas van Rijn reinforces his ship, the Mercury, and gives it a super-powerful engine with pressor and tractor beams able to deflect, then capture, the Borthudian ship that attacks it. This refitting of the ship costs three times as much as the ship can expect to earn. However, van Rijn will redesign only every fourth ship.

Thus, he will still lose three of every four ships attacked. However, the Borthudians will gain twelve slaves from three out of four encounters whereas van Rijn's company will capture twenty Borthudians from each fourth encounter so that the Borthudian press gangs, never knowing which League ship will be able to fight back, will soon be whittled down.

The Spacefarers had voted not to take ships through the Kossaluth of Borthu but will now volunteer because, when the Kossaluth loses so many press gangs that it has to negotiate, the indemnities exacted will be large enough to enable each freed slave to retire for life whereas, if the Kossaluth negotiates immediately, then it will be able to "'...send students to our academies for not much more than the usual fees.'" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 172, my emphasis)

If the Borthudians simply stop attacking, then their precarious empire will not last long, especially since the League will import subversionists and guns. Van Rijn, of course, has covered every angle.

The Antarean System

See here and here.

Antares, expanding, has engulfed its inner planets. Thus, its remaining planets are uninhabitable but contain mineral wealth. Also, the system is a convenient location for a trade center in the Antarean Sector. Therefore, there is "...a human population equal to that of Luna." (The Van Rijn Method, p. 169) (How many is that?)

A single League cruiser protects this colony from "...bandits, political agitators and other imaginable nuisances." (ibid.) I cannot imagine what the other nuisances are? If the agitators protest against some of the injustices that we have seen perpetrated by League companies, then I would support them. Working conditions in the mines are bad and criminals are assigned to them. Penal reform sounds like a legitimate political demand.

Nicholas van Rijn, Master Merchant Polesotechnic League, visiting the Antarean colony with a cargo of cinnamon, ginger, pepper, cloves, tea, whisky and gin, feels entitled to:

stay at the governor's mansion in Redsun City;
make free use of its wine cellar and concubines;
consume banquets for three days;
check prices and add a millicredit per gram to pepper;
lounge on the governor's throne, served by three girls, to interview a prisoner.

The business with the pepper is pure van Rijn. The colonists can afford an extra millicredit and, in any case, their alternatives are to do without condiments or to synthesize them at twice the cost. Van Rijn feels entitled to his "...honest profit..." (ibid.) but helps himself to it only when he has calculated that it is socially and economically feasible for him to do so.

Possible Solutions, Part II

See here.

Suggested by Mjambo, owner of Jo-Boy Technical Services:
bomb the Borthudian home planet.
Objections by van Rijn:
repeats what he said to Torres;
plus - to kill billions is both wrong and wasteful.

Suggested by Firmage of North American Engineering:
limited action against the Borthudian navy.
Objection:
"'...we cannot afford it.'" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 149)

Suggested by Firmage:
subversion.
Objections:
we will but it takes too long;
competitors beyond the Kossaluth are taking over the Sagittarian frontier now.

Suggested by Firmage:
improve evasive action.
Objection:
eighty five percent do evade but the fifteen per cent loss is unacceptable;
cutting engines and lying low does not work very well.

Suggested by Firmage:
convoy the ships.
Objection:
it would mean running at a loss.

Suggested by Firmage:
arm our ships.
Objection:
an unarmed ship needs four men whereas an armed ship needs twenty - again, too expensive.

Suggested by Mjambo:
give our ships pressor beams to hold the enemy away.
Objection by Kraaknach of the Martian Transport Company:
beams are powered by the engines and naval engines are more powerful than merchants'.

Suggested by Mjambo:
give League crews small arms.
Objection by van Rijn:
four men cannot hold off twenty.

Suggested by Gornas-Kiew of the Centaurian conglomerate:
reduce profit just enough to invest in military equipment for the duration of the emergency.
Objection by van Rijn:
repeats earlier arguments against military action;
find a way to make continued attacks unprofitable for Borthu...;
ten percent of everyone's Antarean profits for ten years to anyone who solves the problem at his own risk and expense...

The Problem In Margin Of Profit

Nicholas van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company supplies cinnamon and London dry gin to Sector Antares. Other companies of the Polesotechnic League also have markets there:

"'...if Jo-Boy Technical Services bring in no more engineers and scientists, the colonies will train up their own.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 140.

Surely that is what the colonies should do in the long term? Maybe Jo-Boy should open a training center in a colony?

However, there is a more immediate problem:

"'...certain irresponsible elements of [Technic] civilization...'" (p. 150) have for high pay helped to modernize the backward terrestroid planet Borthu which has been forcibly united by a paranoid culture and has built an interstellar empire that includes the route to Antares. Borthudians detect the wake of a League ship, intercept, phase in, hit with a tractor beam, haul alongside and burn through the hull. They want not the cargo but the trained crew whom they condition to work for them, to maintain their forty light-year diameter empire, the Kossaluth of Borthu. Fifteen percent of shipping is lost. The Federated Brotherhood of Spacefarers votes and refuses to take ships through the Kossaluth.

Possible Solutions, Part I
Suggested by Lodgemaster of the Brotherhood Captain Torres:
Detour, either through astronomically more hazardous regions or by a safer albeit further route.
Objections from van Rijn:
Double or quadruple voyage length! Halve or quarter deliveries! Boost salaries and other costs! Losses would be greater traveling through the Gamma Mist or the Stonefields {Interjection: I would like to know what those are. PS.}. Crews would be dead, not prisoners whom we can try to get released. The safe route would mean an absolute loss.
Torres: "'We'll face meteoroid swarms, infrasuns, rogue planets, black holes, radiation bursts, hostile natives -'" (p. 142) but not Borthudian impressment. (It is good to see rogue planets mentioned again.)

Suggested by Torres: A punitive expedition would be guaranteed full crews.
Van Rijn: the League lacks a large combat fleet. Force can be used against a planetary ruler but not against an enemy capable of interstellar war, which would in any case bankrupt many companies. The government of the Solar Commonwealth would accuse the League of imperialism or piracy and might even help Borthu.

Torres: League measures short of war?
Van Rijn: Threats, trade offers, sanctions and attempted assassinations have not worked. We have nothing to bribe them with. Avoiding their territory will suit their cultural isolationism.

A Few Details In Margin Of Profit

(i) "The office was big, an entire side transparent, overlooking a precipitous vista of Djakarta's towers, green landscape hot with tropical gardens, and the molten glitter of the Java Sea."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 139.

This is the kind of colorful detail that makes it worthwhile to reread Anderson's works. The office belongs to Nicholas van Rijn. Although the story focuses on the activities of a few key individuals, we imagine the population living and working in the Djakarta towers, cultivating and enjoying tropical gardens and sailing on the Java Sea.

(ii) Early extrasolar colonization is called the Breakup in Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization (pp. 611-619) but I wondered whether this term was used in the texts. See here. It is, in this van Rijn story and in at least one Dominic Flandry story.

(iii) Janie (p. 148), native to Avalon, grows in van Rijn's Kilimanjaro mansion just as livewell, also native to Avalon, grows in the floating city of Delfinburg.

(iv) Van Rijn wears a "...cloak of phosphorescent onthar skin..." (p. 147). I thought that this was an animal from Ramnu. However, Ramnuans ride "...onsars.."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 5. 

Margin Of Profit

"Margin of Profit":

was an early sf short story by Poul Anderson (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1956);

introduced Nicholas van Rijn;

had to be rewritten to be incorporated into Anderson's major future history series, the History of Technic Civilization;

was quoted but not included in the first van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars;

thus, for some readers, acquired the special status of a defining van Rijn story that we had not read yet;

was included in The Earth Book Of Stormgate and, of course, in the definitive The Technic Civilization Saga.

What's not to like?

Personal flashback to September 1956:

I was seven and living in (a different part of) the North West of England;
in that very month, September, I started to attend a boarding school near Glasgow in Scotland;
I read comic strip science fiction and superheroes;
Dan Dare fought bald, green, imperialistic Treens just as Dominic Flandry, whom I did not know yet, fought bald, green, tailed, imperialistic, green Merseians;
that first term in Scotland was when I realized that years were numbered and that we would very soon be in 1957;
I did not suspect that, in late December 2014, I would be discussing the works of an American prose science fiction writer on a planetary computer network.

Origins Of Van Rijn

Nicholas van Rijn was introduced as a character by the publication in Analog Science Fiction of "Margin of Profit"(1956), although that original, pre-revised, text was not consistent with the emergent History of Technic Civilization. Van Rijn became a series character with the publication of "The Man Who Counts" (ASF, 1958) and "Hiding Place" (ASF, 1961).

Those of us who first read the Technic History not in ASF but in books first encountered van Rijn in Trader To The Stars, which collects "Hiding Place," "Territory" (ASF, 1963) and "The Master Key" (ASF, 1971). For us on first reading, it was appropriate that "Territory" was prefaced by a long expository passage quoted from "Margin of Profit." That was van Rijn's first story which we had not yet read and thus it had an authoritative status.

As for van Rijn's fictional origins within the series, there is no information. Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization says:

2376  Nicholas van Rijn born poor on Earth.
-Sandra Miesel, "Chronology of Technic Civilization" IN Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), pp. 611-619 AT p. 612.

For an alternative view of the Chronology, see here.

Do the texts confirm that van Rijn was born poor? If not, it is a logical deduction. Van Rijn reminisces:

"He thought back to the days when he had ridden ships through yonder spaces, bargaining in strange cities or stranger wildernesses, or beneath unblue skies and in poisonous winds, for treasures Earth had not yet imagined. For a moment, wistfulness tugged at him. A long time now since he had been any further than the Moon..."
-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method, pp. 135-173 AT p. 147.

Thus, a feel for his earlier days but no biographical data.