Not Only Times But Also Places

A future history series should feature places where some of the characters live, work or spend time so that the reader vicariously experiences not only the passage of time, biographical, generational, historical - even geological and cosmological - but also a number of fully realized physical locations. History is temporal but historical events are spatiotemporal and sometimes contemporaneous. John Ridenour is on Freehold and Chunderban Desai is on Aeneas while Dominic Flandry pursues his career in Intelligence. Earlier, some Polesotechnic League stories had overlapped.

The Rebel Worlds introduces some locations on Aeneas, then most of The Day Of Their Return is set on that planet. Nicholas van Rijn has a penthouse in Chicago Integrate and Dominic Flandry has an apartment in Archopolis. However, these characters move around so much that what we get is a quick succession of places and planets although each of these is realized in detail. We see Flandry in his office at Intelligence Headquarters only once in his entire series.

In the Man-Kzin Wars series, Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling take the trouble to establish the setting of Harold's Terran Bar which Anderson reuses. In one scene, we see this nightspot when it is empty in daylight. Only the proprietor and the bribe-accepting police chief meet and eat:

wurst;
egg and potato salad;
breads;
shrimp-on-rye;
gulyas soup -

- although the police chief has only a croissant and espresso. More for our food thread.

Comparisons

A fictional galaxy can be empty of intelligent life, except on Earth, or full of humanoid beings or somewhere on a spectrum between these two extremes. For one James Blish future history, see here.

Poul Anderson's Terran Empire rules a volume of space inhabited by many humanoid, and some more exotic, beings whereas Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's Second Empire of Man rules only human colony planets until there is First Contact with the Moties.

The purpose of comparing two works is not to denigrate the currently read work by comparison but rather to enjoy both works simultaneously, appreciating contrasts as well as parallels. Because of blogging and other activities, I am rereading Niven's and Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye at a snail's pace. However, I remember from previous readings that the protagonist, Rod Blaine, loses his first command as does Anderson's Dominic Flandry in The Rebel Worlds. On the other hand, neither of these characters was destined to captain a spaceship. Blaine has aristocratic responsibilities and Flandry is better suited to Intelligence work.

I will continue to reread Mote, not specifically seeking comparisons with Anderson's Technic History, but probably continuing to find points of comparison with other future histories, including the several by Anderson. 

Corridors Of Power

When Josef Faber reports to Krasna at Service HQ on Randolph, Krasna offers Faber:

"'Smoke? Drink? Rax?'"
-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1983), p. 20.

When Lieutenant Commander Dominic Flandry reports to Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov at Intelligence headquarters on Earth, Kheraskov offers Flandry a cigar, then:

"'Coffee...Or tea or jaine.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 383.

They will have different drugs and beverages in future.

I am having trouble with the word, "...trikon..." on p. 386 of Young Flandry.

I am rereading this account of Flandry's visit to Intelligence headquarters at Admiralty Center because I am fascinated by the phrase "...labyrinthine corridors of power..." in the blurb on the back of Young Flandry and want to learn more about these corridors. The phrase suggests, at least to me, underground corridors which would make sense for defense against the threat of nuclear bombardment. Admiralty Center occupies and lifts above the Rocky Mountains so some of the Center must tunnel into the mountains? Indeed:

"...traffic pulsed among the towers, up and down within them, deep into the tunnels and chambers beneath their foundations." (p. 380)

However, a robot air taxi deposits Flandry "...on the fiftieth-level parking flange." (ibid.) From there, he walks down several bustling halls to a lift shaft and ascends by negagrav field to the hushed, high rank, ninety-seventh level which holds Kheraskov's opulent suite of offices.

No doubt everyone will descend to chambers beneath the foundations if there is an attack.

Is This Possible?

Dominic Flandry, one of many Intelligence agents sent to investigate the crisis in Sector Alpha Crucis, captains a spaceship that is shot down and crash lands on the planet Dido. Despite this contretemps, Flandry manages to:

lead his surviving crew and their single prisoner on a long trek through an inhospitable environment with native help;

learn to communicate with a Didonian;

hijack a rebel spaceship, thus acquiring the enemy's secret code;

fly the ship to the sector capital, thus ensuring that loyalist forces, possessing the enemy's code, will be able to win any space battle and to destroy the rebel fleet;

murder the Sector Governor, whose injustices had provoked the rebellion;

return his prisoner to her husband, the rebel leader, warning the latter to flee and stay away;

conceal all this malpractice, including murder and treason, from his superiors, some of whom realize that they need men as capable and successful as Flandry.

But can one man really do all this? (If enemy codes are that easy to steal, then I am surprised that it has not been done before.)

On Talwin, Flandry, surviving with limited supplies in another hostile environment, had managed to:

persuade the native Ruadrath to radio the Merseian explorers, alleging that they were puzzled because they had found a frozen alien non-Merseian corpse;

hijack the airbus in which the chief Merseian scientist, Ydwyr, travels to parley with the Ruadrath;

fake a call from Ydwyr to base saying that Flandry was barely alive and that his captured ship should be flown to the Ruadrath so that Terrestrial medical supplies could be accessed;

recapture his ship;

escape from Talwin, taking Ydwyr as hostage;

evade Merseian pursuit by flying through a Talwinian storm, then orbiting around a neutron star;

conspire with Ydwyr to smooth over everything, including his own misdemeanors that had led to his capture by the Merseians.

Snelund's Understanding Of The Civil Service

Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), pp. 468-469.

The foundation of any government is an army of bureaucrats and functionaries who, every day:

operate spaceports and traffic lanes;
deliver mail;
maintain electronic communication channels;
collect and supply data;
oversee public health;
curtail crime;
arbitrate disputes;
allocate scarce resources.

Why "scarce," in the Terran Empire where it is said elsewhere that technology could make every being rich?

Snelund does not mention education. An advanced society needs a literate, numerate, healthy population. Hence, the public health which Snelund does mention. Even when crime is part of the economy, its curtailment is necessary, as crime bosses agree. Organized crime can operate only within an ordered society.

Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac, self-proclaimed Terran Emperor, has seized control of several planets in Sector Alpha Crucis. Sector Governor Aaron Snelund plans to:

avoid direct space naval combat with the tactically superior McCormac;
but reject his Admiral's advice to wait for Terran support;
hit-and-run and harass commerce and industry in the rebel-held volume of space;
plant agents throughout McCormac's realm before it is strongly guarded;
persuade functionaries not to serve the rebellion enthusiastically;
exploit their timidity and conservatism;
bribe, threaten, assassinate or terrorize;
slow down McCormac's civil service, thus starving his navy.

It works. Flandry, spying, learns that:

"Manufacture, logistics, and communications were falling apart beneath Hugh McCormac. He had given up trying to govern any substantial volume of space. Instead, he had assigned forces to defend individually the worlds which had declared for him. They were minimal, those forces. They hampered but could not prevent badgering attacks by Snelund's squadrons. Any proper flotilla could annihilate them in detail." (pp. 492-493)

Snelund, able to outwork twenty demons, has deliberately provoked the revolt, seeking only his own glory and enrichment. How would a rational society be able to get such a man to work not against but with and for others?

Dido And Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas, the third and fourth planets in the Virgilian system, are like a (barely) habitable Venus and a habitable Mars with no Earth between them. See here and here.

Dido has no moon but its eccentric orbit with average radius of one a.u., extreme axial tilt of 38 degrees and rapid rotation period of 8 hours, 47 minutes, cause turbulent seas and weather. Approaching the planet, Flandry sees dazzling, stormy white clouds on the dayside and aurora and lightning on the night side.

The oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere is unacceptably hot and dense, although breathable, but the tropics are lethal to unprotected human beings. Tectonic activity is intense. Vegetation is brown, red, purple and gold. The ground cover, "carpet weed," resembles small red-brown sponges.

Yet again, Poul Anderson imagines a planetary environment differing in fundamental details from the terrestrial: different colors and ground cover and a much shorter day - also, very dissimilar inhabitants. See here and here. 

Gold And Cold

Poul Anderson again appeals to three senses in order to describe a natural scene:

gold sunset;
cold, whittering wind;
the sounds of horses being ridden -

- in Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 421.

The Imperial pretender, Hugh McCormac, rides out with his three sons by his first wife. The oldest, Colin, is to inherit the Firstmanship of Ilion and therefore, following family custom, has not joined the Navy. (Hugh is an Admiral but succeeded only because his older brother died childless.) Continuing to read, we learn that Hugh will be obliged to lead his family into exile. He will be succeeded as Firstman not by his first wife's oldest son but by his second wife's brother, whose heir and successor will be his son, Ivar Frederiksen.

Colin saw ordinary people lynch and beat to death political policemen. I understand that this does happen. When people overthrow a dictatorship, they kill the agents of the regime. I would want to be involved in ending a dictatorship but not in beating anyone to death. In practice, that means that I would give a lead in some situations but would not be in the forefront while a secret policeman was being chased down the street. But others would do this.

(This is probably the last post for this month, the 115th. Over the next few days, I have a few other activities planned. Also, the lap top now works only when I am sitting on the floor beside the router!)

A Man In A Cell

From his cell in a prison satellite, Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac sees the planet Llynathawr but would have preferred to see "...rusty, tawny Aeneas..." (Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 371).

We have met an Aenean, Peter Berg, on Gray/Avalon. We will see something of Aeneas later in The Rebel Worlds and an entire subsequent novel will be set on it. Anderson obviously knows a lot about this colony planet long before we do.

McCormac remembers a conversation with a Wodenite and is rescued by a group that includes a Donarrian - two intelligent quadruped species. Wodenites seem to have an affinity with mankind. McCormac's acquaintance made an insightful comment on our "'...kittle breed...'" (p. 375) and we know of two others who convert to Terrestrial religions. One is FX Axor.

It is when McCormac is rescued that he makes the mistake, as Flandry sees it, of transforming a mutiny into a revolt with himself as the Imperial claimant. In this case, I am persuaded to agree with Flandry.

Because of Flandry's intervention, McCormac, exiled, leads his people to Kirkasant in the Cloud Universe.

More On Shalmu

First, a few more obscure planets. Flandry visits the human colonies on Starport and New Indra before Shalmu. His ship, Asieneuve, is named after a land mass on Ardeche, a human colony planet of which he had never heard. Many other ships may have the same name. Computers number millions of spacecraft.

Poul Anderson never refers to "grass" on another planet. He always describes the local equivalent. On Shalmu, there is silver psuedograss that whispers when it moves.

The Clan Towns of Att were ordered to enslave the Yanduvar folk since the former have rifles whereas the latter have only poisoned arrows, although also a promising culture now being destroyed. The Council of Att debated long before it was forced to comply. The unwilling slavers are paid, which helps them to pay the increased taxes.

Flandry, noting the illegality and injustice but also proceeding warily while gathering intelligence, lectures his men on the biological and cultural diversity within the Empire:

a planet where high radiation, high mutation rate and food shortage make murder and cannibalism necessary for survival;
intelligent hermaphrodites;
sophonts with more than two sexes;
some that regularly change sex.

Flandry is glossing over the wrongness that they have seen on Shalmu but does say that he will report it and, of course, we know that he will take extreme and irregular measures when he can.

Faking It

I mentioned Dominic Flandry claiming that he had been working with Commander Abrams before he did in fact work with him. See here. A similar situation occurs, although with a superior's approval, later. When Admiral Kheraskov gives Flandry his first command, he concludes:

"'Your ship is in Mars orbit. Departure will be immediate. I hope you can fake the knowledge of her you don't have, until you've gathered it...'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 389.

Kheraskov has already said that the ship has an able executive officer and that this should free Flandry's attention for his real job, which is Intelligence, not Captaincy. "Faking it" it is part of the job but it is coping and learning rather than fakery.

When I was a newly qualified Careers Adviser, the receptionist took a call from a woman asking about a career of which I had no knowledge as yet. My first responsibility was to my internal client, the receptionist. I had to say, "Put her through," not "I don't know about that!" Meanwhile, I was starting to find the named career in the index of my Occupations reference book. When speaking to the enquirer, I made written notes of exactly what she needed to know. First step: identify client needs; do not worry at this stage about whether you know the answers. Then I could maybe tell her something over the phone but could also note her name and address and promise to post her printed careers information. Second stage: address needs. Third stage: positive outcome.

Flandry's job is much more difficult than careers guidance but his abilities to cope and to improvise are also immeasurably greater.

Shalmu II

See Shalmu.

Shalmu is an inhabited planet in Sector Alpha Crucis.

"Shalmu" is its name in one of the languages of its most technologically advanced civilization.

That civilization was in a bronze age when discovered.

Sporadic trade progressed it to iron.

In Flandry's time, a combustion-powered technology spreads the advanced civilization across Shalmu.

This process is slower than on Terra because Shalmuans are less inclined to exterminate or exploit each other.

The Terran Empire protects Shalmu from barbarians.

The Terran Naval base is on a barren planet elsewhere in the system.

However, the small marine garrison on Shalmu and spacemen visiting the planet on leave bring traders who do business with both service personnel and natives.

Some Shalmuans work for extraplanetarians or gain scholarships for outsystem education.

Shalmuan taxes are metals, fuels, food or art.

The Imperial resident does not interfere with native cultures and suppresses wars and bandits with his marines.

Terran law curbs the arrogance of young Imperials.

Sector Governor Snelund increases taxes and militarily enforces payment. Then he instructs armed Shalmuans to catch others for the barbarian slave trade. This decree is enforced by mass crucifixions.

Later In Sector Alpha Crucis

Avalon and Freehold successfully resist the Terran Empire; Ansa and Aeneas do not. Real history is complicated and so are Poul Anderson's fictitious histories. The Terran Empire need not oppress its subject planets but does forcibly annex some, like Ansa and Brae.

The Rebel Worlds and its sequel, The Day Of Their Return, are set in Sector Alpha Crucis of the Terran Empire. Thus, we see important events in the first novel and their aftermath in the second but this sub-series of the Technic History cannot continue indefinitely. However, we are given one more datum about Sector Alpha Crucis. In The Game Of Empire, a Merseian task force sent to Gorrazan passes through Imperial space and, for purposes of psychological warfare, allows itself to be detected just before the Alpha Crucis frontier, leaving Terran units no alternative but to engage it and to take some losses.

That is all. When we see a reference to this Sector, we want to know more about its inhabitants. Did the incorporation of Aeneas into the Empire proceed smoothly? Did Ivar Frederiksen, heir to the Firstmanship of Ilion, accept the difficult role that had been asked of him? Was closer communication established with the tripartite intelligences on the sister planet Dido? Did Llynathawr, the seat of the civil authority, attract more human settlers or instead remain mostly dark and empty?

We do not know. Space is big and the only additional information about Sector Alpha Crucis is that it became the scene of a very minor skirmish that had been carefully planned to have significant propaganda implications elsewhere.

Tineran(t)s

A future history series develops more fully in one volume what it merely refers to in another. In The Rebel Worlds, while Hugh McCormac is leading a revolt against the Terran Empire, he spends time with his sons at their ancestral seat of Windhome on the planet Aeneas.

"A caravan of tinerants had established itself on the meadow in front [of Windhome]."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 425.

In this novel, the "tinerans," with an extra "t" at the end of the word, are a colorful detail, not mentioned again: trucks, striped tents, flags, booths, campfires, music, dances, "...tatterdemalion wanderers..." (ibid.), a carnival drawing customers from far afield despite the approaching Imperial fleet. Hugh McCormac cannot understand it. What is important to him is not important to others but that is people for you. Without such diversity, no complex civilization would be possible.

In the following volume, The Day Of Their Return, McCormac's nephew-in-law, Ivar Frederiksen, trying to revive the rebellion but on the run from the Imperials, hides among the "tinerans." We learn much more about them and they teach us a lot about life on Aeneas.

Ivar Frederiksen

Hugh McCormac led a rebellion. Dominic Flandry defeated it. Ivar Frederiksen and Chunderban Desai dealt with its aftermath. The Day Of Their Return, when introducing Ivar, summarizes his biographical details of necessity briefly, so briefly that I had completely forgotten them despite rereading the novel several times.

Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac became Firstman of Ilion, Speaker of the three Houses of the Aenean legislature, when his older brother died without leaving an heir. Because Kathryn Frederiksen had become McCormac's second wife, her brother and his family often vacationed at Windhome, ancestral seat of the Firstman.

When the Imperial favorite, Aaron Snelund, became Governor of Sector Alpha Crucis, taxes increased, venal appointments were made, injustices occurred in less well represented societies, petitions were shunted aside, arrests and confiscations for "treason" began, there were secret police and outrages, Snelund detained Kathryn, Hugh was arrested and rescued and led a mutiny. Kathryn's nephew, Ivar, a hereditary member of the University of Nova Roma, had been educated there from infancy. The curriculum had included military training since the Troubles. Now students drilled full time, expecting to fight in the rebellion which, however, was suddenly defeated. With Snelund dead, Muratori became Sector Governor. With Hugh and Kathryn fled, Ivar's father became Firstman and Ivar became Firstling or heir while Desai was appointed High Commissioner of an occupied Aeneas.

The University was closed and the Frederiksens moved to Windhome. When the University reopened, under observation, Ivar returned to Nova Roma and engaged in underground activity, now living not in the family townhouse but in a cheap part of the Web where there was for the first time a more significant criminal class. When rallies and demonstrations at the Brian McCormac monument became riots, assemblies were banned, the monument was razed and the Landfolk were ordered to disband all units and surrender all weapons.

Ivar led a group that smuggled out weapons and ambushed an Imperial patrol in order to acquire more arms, then hide in Ironland oases, raid, recruit and gain support and off-planet sympathy. However, the ambush failed and Desai must order a search for the fugitive Firstling.

A Multi-Species Civilization II

Captain Flandry's executive officer, Rovian of Ferra - larger than human, dark-furred, tailed, clawed, sabre-toothed, able to alternate between four-armed and quadrupedal, naked except for weapons and insignia, unambitious and amoral by human standards -, lodges in a rooming house for mostly non-human and unchoosy clients where he shares his grimy-windowed kennel with a contemplative, tentacled, hydrogen-oxide-exuding but personally decent rippling hulk. Flandry, visiting, must sit on the floor, smoke to counteract the headache-inducing rotten-egg gas and odor of decay and converse in Eriau instead of in Anglic in order not to be understood by the hulk.

I have compressed information about a Ferran and an (unknown) into a single sentence for brevity and amusement. We enjoy these colorful details in Poul Anderson's The Rebel Worlds but do we fully appreciate their implications? Flandry, an Intelligence Officer, must be prepared to spend time surrounded by and interacting with non-humanoid intelligences in their environments. Sitting on the floor and getting a headache are probably only the half of it.

Terran Naval Funeral Services

In The Rebel Worlds, Flandry as captain must read the service at the burial of one of his men. Although he thinks, "But I never believed -...," he is handed the prayerbook and must do what is expected.

"His fingers stained the page as he read aloud the majestic words."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 444.

We are not told the words although we imagine an English language naval or military funeral. Flandry would have been reading Anglic, which is descended from English.

Earlier in the History, Philippe Rochefort, a Jerusalem Catholic, and Abdullah Helu, a Muslim, had buried Wa Chaou, a Cynthian. Rochefort reads the service:

"'- Father, unto You in what form he did dream You, we commit this being, our comrade; and we pray that You grant him rest, even as we pray for ourselves. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.'"
- Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 543.

Here we have a monotheist liturgy broadened or diluted enough to include as many beings as possible while still remaining at least nominally monotheist. This recalls some later words of reassurance rounding off the radio announcement of an insurrection:

"'Stand by. The Divine, in whatever form It manifests itslf to you, the Divine is with us.'"
- Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 261.

This Divine is impersonal, "It," not "You." Of course, we must each seek and find, not letting any regime tell us what we believe.

A Stone In Heaven

In A Circus Of Hells and The Rebel Worlds, the young Dominic Flandry achieves his aims, both personal and political, by practicing elaborate deceptions. By contrast, his last novel as central character, A Stone In Heaven, is refreshingly simple and consequently more plausible.

The Duke of Hermes is suspected of planning a coup. Miriam/Banner's Ramnuan oath-sister, Yewwl, enters the commercial center, Dukeston, on a pretext and transmits what she sees: secret production of military equipment and uniforms and of more palladium than necessary for a civilian economy - maybe also military rations and fissionable isotopes. Yewwl does not leave Dukeston alive but Flandry, acting on what she has seen, attacks from space, destroying first a particular building in Dukeston, then the military base on the outer moon. That is enough. The Duke, already in space, seeking Flandry, flees and his movement collapses, crews either surrendering or disappearing. If only it were always that simple.

Flandry refers to his last expedition and we really do expect that he and Chives will die in space at the end. They dispatched Miriam to Terra in the Hooligan while they manually flew the warheads towards their final target but she returns to rescue them. Thus, Flandry reviews his life but happily it does not end yet. In fact, he and Miriam begin a partnership that continues in the next novel.

Djana's Curse

Djana:

"'I guess I can't stop you from having almost any woman who comes by. But I'll wish this, that you never get the one you really want.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 365.

There are two women whom Flandry really wants. Kathryn McCormac refuses to leave her husband. Kossara Vymezal wants marriage before sex but changes her mind twice. The first time, it would be impractical -

Kossara: "'Would it be wrong? Here in these clean spaces, under heaven?'"
Flandry: "'It would not be very practical, I'm afraid. You deserve better.'"
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), pp. 522-523.

The second time:

"'But, uh, your cathedral wedding -'
"'I've come to see how little it matters, how little the universe does, next to having you while I can. Tonight, Dominic. Now.'
"He seized her to him.
"A flash went blue-white in the front windows.
"They sprang up.'" (p. 534)

Kossara's entire family has been slain. From this moment on, he and she are busy and on the run until she too is killed...

Can Djana's curse really cause all that? Of course, the text is ambiguous. But she definitely did have the psychic power to make conscious beings do what she wanted. Her Merseian mentor measured the effect. A Merseian space crew seeking Flandry's inert vessel detected it by radar but dismissed the object as an asteroid because Djana willed it.

Such control over events rivals the luck of Teela Brown in Larry Niven's Known Space future history. Whatever is lucky for Teela Brown happens, even ancient events with beneficial consequences for her remote future - although hindsight is necessary to see what was beneficial. Djana seems to have a similar effect at a distance.

In case the reader has not read or has forgotten the earlier novel, Flandry tells Kossara:

"'...I'd got a different woman angry at me. She had a peculiar psionic power, not telepathy but - beings tended to do what she desired. She wished on me that I never get the one I wanted in my heart. I'm not superstitious, I take no more stock in curses or spooks than I do in the beneficence of governments. Still - an unconscious compulsion - Bah! If there was any such thing, which I positively do not think, then you've lifted it off me, Kossara...'" (p. 524)

An unconscious compulsion on Flandry could not possibly cause a nuclear explosion to kill Kossara's family at the moment when she said, "Now." When Djana delivered the curse:

"He thought little of her remark, then." Young Flandry, p. 365.

We also think little of it. There is simply no indication that Djana's anger might have such major consequences in two later novels.

Troubled Times

Poul Anderson writes well about troubled times in Mirkheim, The People Of The Wind, The Rebel Worlds, The Day Of Their Return, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and The Game Of Empire.

Governments and populations mobilize for war. The powerful meet in secret. Emergency measures are taken and announcements made. Events move quickly, also rumors and ideas about social change. In A Knight..., human agents of Merseia turn out to have infiltrated Terran and Dennitzan Intelligence to an extent that makes paranoia the only safe response. On Dennitza, an armed force is ready to intervene in Parliament as soon as disinformation and provocation are seen to have failed. Flandry and his fiancee are smuggled into the Chamber in a zmayi (Merseian) demonstration.

That degree of infiltration is unusual, I hope, although on one famous occasion British Intelligence had a Russian agent running its Russian section. Years ago, a social campaigner interviewed on British television claimed that "the Communists" had infiltrated every aspect of British society. What she meant, of course, was that ideas, values and attitudes had changed in ways of which she disapproved. No amount of "infiltration" could explain that. In fact, the cause was the dynamic economy that she probably supported.

Didonians

Let's try to get a better grasp of what Didonians look like. Flandry sees what initially resemble rhinoceroses but, on closer examination:

each of these "nogas" does have the size, general build and horned nose of a rhino;

but their skin is nearly hairless, slate-blue and smooth;

they have no tails;

their ears are big and fan-like;

the shoulders extend sideways as small platforms;

when a goose-like "krippo" and an ape-like "ruka" sit on the platforms and join their "tongues" to the noga's extensible "tentacles," then and only then is a rational Didonian present.

As with other complicated situations described by Anderson, I had remembered in a general way how tripartite Didonian consciousness works. However, the details have become clearer through writing an account of them. Each complete Didonian has partial memories of experiences of other such entities that its members have temporarily participated in. Thus, their concept of self cannot possibly be anything like ours and they say things like:

"Make oneness.
"I/we: Feet belonging to Guardian of North Gate and others who can be, to Raft Farer and Woe who will no longer be..."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 369.

The novel begins like that without any explanation but it all makes sense if we persevere.