Connections

We are reconsidering the first five of the fifteen instalments in the Flandry period of Poul Anderson's Technic History and asking which persons or planets introduced in these instalments either reappear or are referenced later in the series. These five instalments are:

Ensign Flandry

A Circus Of Hells

The Rebel Worlds

"Outpost of Empire"

The Day Of Their Return

Ensign Flandry introduces:

Dominic Flandry, series character

Crown Prince Josip

Miriam Abrams, a child in a picture seen by her father but later Flandry's wife

Max Abrams, later remembered by his daughter

the land Starkadians, including Dragoika who reappears in "The Game of Empire"

John Ridenour who reappears in "Outpost of Empire"

Persis d'Io whose son by Flandry appears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows -

- but does not introduce Merseia or the Merseians because:

Falkayn's team had been on Merseia in "Day of Burning";

Merseians had joined the Baburite Space Navy in Mirkheim;

the Merseian Roidhunate is a distant but growing threat in The People Of The Wind -

- or the Terran Empire which:

had been announced in "The Star Plunderer";

is expanding in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

adjusts its frontier with the Domain of Ythri in The People Of The Wind.

A Circus Of Hells introduces:

the planet Talwin which is mentioned in The Day Of Their Return and reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows;

Aycharaych of Chereion although only as mentioned by a Merseian;

D'jana whose psychic power will possibly influence Flandry in The Rebel Worlds and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

The Rebel Worlds introduces:

the planet Dido in the Virgilian System;

Josip now as Emperor although this time off-stage;

Vice Admiral Kheraskov, later mentioned in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows -

- but does not introduce:

The planet Aeneas which had been mentioned in "The Problem of Pain";

the planet Shalmu which had been mentioned in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

the Ferrans, one of whom had appeared in Satan's World.

"Outpost of Empire" introduces:

the planet Freehold which is later referenced in "The Sharing of Flesh."

The Day Of Their Return, set on Aeneas, introduces:

Chunderban Desai who reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows;

Aycharaych in person, destined to become Flandry's adversary in "Honorable Enemies," "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and to be referenced again in The Game Of Empire;

the Aenean rebels some of whose descendants rejoin interstellar civilization in "Starfog."

That is one massive collection of connections and I have probably missed some.

Barbarians

Kheraskov confirms that the barbarians beyond Sector Alpha Crucis have been held in check since a battle forty-three years previously, long before Flandry's birth. However, Flandry remembers that the invading Alarri had been defeated at the Battle of Mirzan when he was a boy. These sound vaguely like the same event except that the dates are different. Flandry does not remember the name of that the earlier battle and Kheraskov does not tell us what it was either. In the Flandry novels, the barbarians seem to be held well in check. McCormac brings in Darthans to patrol the Virgilian System during his Rebellion but that is all. In "Tiger by the Tail," the barbarians, particularly the Schothani, are a major threat and it is stated that the Empire uses nonhuman hirelings to hold its borders. The galaxy seems like a different place. But this is a matter of perspective. Flandry is right in among the Schotani which is why they have "a tiger by the tail."

A Palpable Sense Of Troubled Times

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWO. 

Let me back up that sense of troubled times (here).

Unusual circumstances are necessary to explain why a mere Lieutenant is reporting to a Vice Admiral, not to a Captain or to his usual superior.

Kheraskov has to judge that he is talking to someone who will not betray him by reporting him to the Imperial court. (That would result in preferment for Flandry and ruin for Kheraskov.)

Kheraskov and some of his colleagues have learned things that Flandry hushed up about his assignment to surveillance. That can only mean his dealings with the criminal, Leon Ammon. Yet Flandry is brilliant enough that a high echelon in Intelligence can turn a blind eye when they need someone like him.

Kheraskov paces, hammering palm with fist, talking rapidly. What he has to say matches this build-up.

A sense of menace to both men: I trust that "palpable" is an accurate description.

One Bachelor And Several Admirals

Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 367-520.

"...at the opposite end of Terra's domain, twinned Alpha and bachelor Beta of the Southern Cross." 

-CHAPTER TWO, p. 386.

In what sense is Beta Crucis a bachelor?

The red giant star, Betelgeuse, with its large inhabited planetary system, lies between the Terran Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate. Sector Alpha Crucis is at the opposite end of the Empire. Beyond that Sector, there are only barbarians with spaceships and atomic weapons acquired from civilization.

Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov orders Lieutenant Commander Flandry to report to Rear Admiral Yamaguchi. Later in his career, Flandry will be a Fleet Admiral. What are all these kinds of Admirals? A Wikipedia article explains all, here. Somewhere in there, I found the explanation that a Rear Admiral is indeed to be found at the rear of a fleet.

Kheraskov explains to Flandry that, while the Merseians are pushing at Jihannath, there is repression and potential rebellion in Sector Alpha Crucis. The sense of troubled times is palpable. Flandry's career accelerates.

Merseians Off-Stage

Sometimes the Merseians remain off-stage but are a powerful background presence, nevertheless. In The Rebel Worlds, they attempt to take over Jihannath: a planet or a cluster? Most of the Terran fleet and Intelligence Corps must be diverted to that border. Meanwhile, Admiral Hugh McCormac rebels in Sector Alpha Crucis on the other side of the Empire. Undercover agents and inspectors are sent. Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov also sends a warship whose captain, with special sealed orders, will be able to investigate informally but openly and will have to be received by the Sector Governor who is known to have acted in  ways that have provoked McCormac's revolt. A dozen operatives are considered and Flandry is selected. Sometimes trouble on the other side of the Empire has been instigated by the Merseians. In this case, it has not. But the coincidence of the Jihannath and Sector Alpha Crucis crises means that Flandry has to defeat the rebellion urgently - and an agent of Merseia will attempt to foment further unrest in the aftermath.  

Back In That Office

Poul Anderson's The Rebel Worlds ends as it begins with an unnumbered and unentitled passage narrated from a Didonian point of view. This time we understand it better. Before that, CHAPTER SIXTEEN ends with two pages set back in Kheraskov's office but unfortunately the only new information is that Saturn has replaced Jupiter in the wall-size animation. I had a confused memory from previous readings of Terra overhead which is impossible since Admiralty Center is in the Rockies, not on Luna. However:

"'...the fleshpots of Terra glowing right overhead...'" (p. 516)

- occur in Kheraskov's dialogue when he apologises to Flandry because the latter has:

"'...been made to spend the whole two weeks in Luna Prime.'" (ibid.)

This time they drink Scotch.

Flandry's superiors know that he has committed treason and murder but turn a blind eye because he has got the job done. In times like those, they need men like him. What times!

A Rushed Narrative And Kheraskov's Office

Sometimes, for reasons of word limit, a narrative is shorter than we would have liked. In Poul Anderson's A Circus of Hells, we would have liked a chapter on the conversation between Dominic Flandry and the main computer on Wayland.

In The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWO ends as Flandry is about to leave Kheraskov's office and CHAPTER THREE begins with the Asieneuve's tthird stop en route to Llynathawr. That third stop is at Shalmu whereas the first and second had been at humanly colonised planets so would maybe have been less interesting.

However, I feel that the entire narrative is rushed. I would like to have lingered in Kheraskov's office:

on the 90th floor of Intelligence headquarters;

scanner, talkbox and computer for reception;

large;

high-ceilinged;

lushly carpeted;

an infotriever;

an outsize vidphone;

a small refreshment unit;

pictures;

shelves for mementos of victories;

a vivid wall-size animation of Jupiter filmed from an approaching ship;

an expanse of desktop;

Kheraskov in plain uniform without decorations but the jewel of knighthood and the nebula and star of admiralty;

cigar and coffee, tea or jaine offered.

Kheraskov is:

"...the master of perhaps a million agents through the Empire and beyond." (p. 383)

A Change Of Face

The Rebel Worlds.

In CHAPTER TWO, Dominic Flandry:

arrives by aircab on the 50th-level parking flange of Intelligence headquarters at Admiralty Center in the North American Rocky Mountains on Terra, a planet that we have not seen since the Emperor's Birthday at the beginning of Ensign Flandry;

is admitted by a marine guard after ID verification;

reflects on the fate of the Empire while walking along halls crowded with hurrying individuals of different ranks, roles and species;

gives directions to and exchanges addresses with a young woman;

ascends by gravshaft to the 97th level;

now walks among persons of higher rank than his;

enters the suite of Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov who remarks, "'I see you have a new face,'" (p. 383) although they have never met.

In a film, this should be the first moment when we see Flandry's face and realize that he is played by a new actor who will remain in place for the rest of the series, aging thanks to Make Up. 

FUTURISTIC SEX by Sean M. Brooks

 

Fair warning to the prurient minded, despite the title of my article, this essay is not pornographic, so get your minds out of the sewers!

 

Over a career in writing spanning more than half a century Poul Anderson used or touched on a vast range of topics. Here I want to note how sex might be used or abused in the future, using his Technic stories for some striking examples.

 

Two basic premises for Anderson's Technic series are (1) a FTL interstellar drive was invented; and (2) many non-human intelligent races were discovered. With these premises many, many possibilities becomes thinkable.

 

I absolutely expect humans in the future to continue using and abusing sex in all the ways we see that being done in the real world, here and now. I also expect sexual encounters between humans and non-humans to happen, especially if these species are not physically repellent to each other.

 

I should also stress that intelligent races which had independently evolved on different worlds over billions of years will not be mutually interfertile. And that will remain true no matter how much two such species resembles each other.

The text quoted below came from Chapter II of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, one of Anderson's stories about Dominic Flandry, Intelligence officer for an interstellar Terran Empire set more than 1000 years from now in the future.

 

Outside a particular joyhouse, otherwise undistinguished

from the rest, an Irumclavian used a vocalizer to chant

in Anglic: "Come one, come all, come in, no cover, no

minimum. Every type of amusement, pleasure, and thrill.

No game too exotic, no stakes too high or low. Continuous

sophisticated entertainment. Delicious food and drink,

stimulants, narcotics, hallucinogens, emphasizers, to your

order, to your taste, to your purse. Every sex and every

technique of seventeen, yes, seventeen intelligent species

ready to serve your desires, and this does not count racial,

mutational, and biosculpt variations. Come one, come all--"

 

A little later, in the same chapter,  as Flandry left the "gravshaft" on the level where he was going to a "business" meeting with Leon Ammon, proprietor of this dubious establishment,  we read: "He was glad when Door 666 admitted him; that was on the sado-maso level, and he had glimpsed things. Further on in Chapter II, "Flandry had his suspicions about the origin of many of the subjects on the floor below. Consenting adults . . . after brain channeling and surgical disguise..."

 

The extremely disreputable business establishment Flandry had entered was a brothel, set more than a thousand years in the future. The distaste he had for the sado-maso shows readers he was not "into" the really gross and perverted types of sex. Over and over, in the Flandry stories, readers will see he was a normal male heterosexual who liked and preferred women. And, in the right circumstances, xenosophont females!

 

It's right to quote again from  A CIRCUS OF HELLS, to illustrate how kinky futuristic sex might be. The text quoted below came from the beginning paragraphs of Chapter III.  A major character, a prostitute named Djana, went to meet what she thought would be a human customer but was not.

 

Bracing herself and wetting her lips, she said, "I don't. Not with xenos--"

and in haste, fearing  offense might be taken, "I mean non-human sophonts.

It isn't right,"

 

"I suspect a large enough sum would change your mind," the other

said. "You have a reputation for avarice. However, I plan a different

kind of proposition. It moved slowly closer, a lumpy gray body on four

thin legs which brought the head at its middle about level with her

waist. One tentacle sent the single loose garment swirling about in

a sinuous gesture. Another clutched the vocalizer in boneless

fingers. The instrument was being used with considerable skill;

it actually achieved an ingratiating note. "You must know about

me in your turn. I am only Rax, harmless old Rax, the solitary

representative of my species on this world. I assure you my

reproductive pattern is sufficiently unlike yours that I find your

assumption comical."

I agree that, assuming a FTL interstellar community with thousands of intelligent races, some humans and xenosophonts will have sex. But others like Djana will believe that to be wrong or disgusting. Others, like that of Rax's species, will have reproductive patterns so different from those of other races that the idea of sex with them was merely laughable.

 

I wish to backtrack a bit  to comment about Rax, in the text quoted from Chapter III. I noted how Rax was referred to as "it," instead of either "he" or "she." That made me wonder if Rax came from a race which did not have male or female sexes, reproducing in other ways.

 

The quotes taken from A CIRCUS OF HELLS gives Anderson's readers some fascinating if speculative glimpses into the sordid, seamy underside of what an interstellar civilization could be like. And these glimpses Anderson gave us can be easily paralleled in many similar brothels and prostitutes of both sexes in the real world. The more squalid aspects of the steamy night life of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, in the US, comes to mind as two examples!

 

To be strictly fair even to Leon Ammon not everything offered at his disreputable establishment will be morally repugnant, such as his restaurant services. Or even some gambling, in moderation and only if the games are honest.

 

In Chapter 4 of ENSIGN FLANDRY, we see Dragoika, a ship captain and a very influential member of the Sisterhood of Kursoviki. She belonged to a species, the Tigeries of Starkad, physically resembling humans so closely that Dragoika found Flandry attractive.

 

"Pity you must wear that helmet," Dragoika said. "I'd like to taste your lips.

But otherwise we're not made so differently, our two kinds. Will you come

to my cabin?"

 

For an instant that whirled, Flandry was tempted. He had everything he

could do answer. It wasn't based on past lectures about taking care not

to offend native mores, nor on principle, nor, most certainly, on fastid-

iousness. If anything, her otherness made her the more piquant. But

he couldn't really predict what she might do in a close relationship,

and--

 

"I'm deeply sorry," he said. "I'd love to, but I'm under a--" what was the

word?--"a geas."

 

She was neither much offended nor much surprised. She had seen a

lot of different cultures. "Pity," she said. "Well, you know where the

forecastle is. Goodnight." She padded aft. En route, she stopped to

collect Ferok.

--and besides, those fangs were awfully intimidating.

 

This amusing quote from ENSIGN FLANDRY shows Anderson speculating that parallel evolution would make humans and some non-humans physically resemble each other closely enough to be sexually attractive. I also noted mention of those lectures stressing the need to avoid offending Tigery mores. Flandry was wise to very tactfully decline Dragoika's proposition. A thousand years and more must have taught humans and non-humans alike many hard lessons on the need for caution in such intimate matters. It was also entertaining for Flandry to be intimidated by Dragoika's fangs!

I want to touch on one more example of futuristic sex between a human and non-human from the Technic stories. Years after both ENSIGN FLANDRY and A CIRCUS OF HELLS, Captain Flandry was kidnapped by unusually humanoid aliens in "Tiger by the Tail." This quote segues into how he was able to act as he did on Scotha: "The being was remarkably humanoid. Certain differences of detail could quite likely be found beneath the clothes, and more basic ones beneath the skin. Among countless worlds, evolutionary coincidences are bound to happen now and then, but never evolutionary identities. Yet to the eye, crew member and captive resembled each other more than either resembled, say, a woman. Or an alien female? Flandry wondered. I'll bet this is a male, and equipped pretty much like me, too. (AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, revised Gregg Press edition, 1979, page 2). That last part, "equipped pretty much like me, too," was Anderson's way of alerting readers that Scothans and humans were sexually compatible.

After being taken by these xenosophonts to their home planet Flandry met the wife of their king, Queen Gunli. Because of soon becoming aware of her unhappiness, he was friendly and obliging to the queen, as part of his efforts to undermine Scotha. Another apt quote is this: "Flandry gave her an appreciative look. He had ascertained that Scothanian and human females were extremely similar in outward anatomy. Queen Gunli was a stunblast, with dark rippling hair, big violet eyes, daintily sculptured features, and a figure that a thin, clinging gown scarcely hid." (AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, page 20). Meaning humans and Scothans could be attracted to each other. 

 

Queen Gunli did not like the Frithians, the Scothan nation which conquered and unified the planet, or their plans for more aggression and war.  The text copied below came from the revised version of the story in AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE (Gregg Press: 1979), page 30.

 

"War is what they want."

"But not what the females want. Not to wait and wait and wait for the ships

to come back, never knowing whether only his sword will return. Not to rock

a baby and know that a few years hence he will be a corpse on the shores

of some alien planet. Not to--" She broke off and straightened her slim

shoulders. "Let me not whimper. Naught can I do about it."

 

"You are very brave as well as beautiful, Gunli," said Flandry. "Your kind

have changed fate ere now." And he sang, low, a stave he had made in

the Scothan bardic form:

 

"So I see you standing,

sorrowful in darkness.

But the moonlight's broken

by your eyes, tear-shining--

moonlight in the maiden's

magic net of tresses.

Gods gave many gifts, but,

Gunli, yours was greatest."

All at once she was in his arms.

 

It was danger, loneliness, common ends they both desired, as well as mutual attraction that brought Flandry and Gunli into having an affair, despite being of alien races. Anderson had too much good taste to feel any need to be sexually explicit, that was left implicit. I also appreciated the verse he wrote here, it moderated the breakneck pacing of the story, giving readers a moment for reflecting on the issues that story raised.

 

Last, near the end of "Tiger by the Tail," on page 40 of the Gregg Press edition of AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE, we read this, as Flandry and Gunli waited for the Terrans to land on Scotha:

 

She brought her left hand from beneath the cloak and took both his.

"And what will you be doing?" she asked.

He met her gaze. Loneliness was sudden within him. How beautiful

she stood there.

 

But what she meant could never endure. They were too foreign to each

other. Best he depart soon, that the memories remain untarnished in

them both. She would find someone else at last. And he--well-- "I have

my work," he said.

 

I agree with Flandry's decision, because he and Queen Gunli belonged to different intelligent species. No matter how much two such races may look like each other, billions of years of separate evolution on different planets inevitably means both races will have fundamental differences from each other. And that's going to remain true even if males and females can have sexual intercourse. Also, the genetic barrier would make it impossible for them to have children. It was right of Flandry to decide it was better, for both Gunli and him, that he soon leave Scotha, parting from each other in friendship.

 

I consulted the second edition of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION (ed. John Clute and Peter Nicholls. St. Martin's Press, 1993) to get some idea of how other science fiction writers handled the theme of human/alien sex. Alas, all I found on page 1090, in Nicholls' article "SEX" I thought relevant to Anderson's work was this: "A sensitive treatment of love between alien races is STRANGERS (1974, NEW DIMENSIONS; exp 1978) by Gardner DOZOIS, which draws attention to the ghastly errors that can occur from trying to understand a foreign society in terms of the assumptions of one's own."

But, when I looked up John Clute's entry for Dozois, this is what I found on page 352 of the ENCYCLOPEDIA: "...his first solo novel, STRANGERS (1974, NEW DIMENSIONS; exp 1978), an intense and well told love story between a human male and a ALIEN female, set on her home planet, in a Galaxy humans signally do not dominate, her death from bearing his child is biologically inevitable (the plot's derivation from Philip Jose FARMER'S The Lovers [1961] can be seen as homage) and stems from a mutual incomprehension rooted in culture and the intrinsic solitude of beings (see also SEX)."

 

This exasperated me! I agree it might be possible some intelligent races, human and non-human, could so strongly resemble each other that sexual attraction and desire will be likely. I also agree it's highly probable mutual alienness will breed strains, stresses, problems, and tragedies. I do not agree, given totally alien genetics and separate evolution over billions of years on different planets, that humans and aliens will be able to have children. I was disappointed that Clute and Nicholls seemed unaware of that scientific absurdity. That absurdity also discredits any stories by other SF authors who write of humans and aliens being able to have children.

Before offering some general conclusions I'll quote from Chapter III of THE REBEL WORLDS to show how some non-humans might reproduce: "I know of intelligent hermaphrodites, and sophonts with more than two sexes, and a few that regularly change sex. They all tend to look on our reproductive pattern as obscene." I can too easily imagine beings from some of these species "working" as prostitutes in Leon Ammon's "joyhouse."

 

Being, as I am, both Catholic and a conservative, I would not be at all surprised to find out brothels and sexual perversions of all kinds will exist in the far future. I believe in having no illusions about how flawed humans and xenosophont races, if they exist, are likely to be if they too have fallen.  Humans being what they are--and xenosophonts, as I suspect they will be--there will be sexual encounters between members of different species, but that will not always occur because of force and violence. I appreciated how Anderson drew out such implications without needing to be pornographic!

Appendix I: JIHANNATH

 

For the sake of completeness I am discussing here a few details which did not quite fit into the main body of this article. In Chapter V of A CIRCUS OF HELLS Djana said to Flandry: "I came up from slavery--in the Black Hole of Jihannath--what I've been through makes the worse they've thought of in Irumclaw Old Town look like a creche game--"  And in Chapter XV Djana also said: "Where were the Emperor and his law when I tried to escape from the Black Hole, fifteen years old, and my contractor caught me and turned me over to the Giggling Man for a lesson?" As far as this goes, the point  we need to keep in mind is to have no illusions about prostitution, far too many times "sex workers" did not enter that "profession" freely, but by force and are often kept obedient and in line by abuse and torture.

 

But, the complication here was that Jihannath was not part of the Empire when Djana was  a child. A few years later, in Chapter II of THE REBEL WORLDS, as Vice Admiral Kheraskov was briefing Flandry we read: "I'm not letting out any great secret when I tell you the latest Merseian crisis is worse than the government admits to the citizens. It could completely explode on us. I think we can defuse it. For once, the Empire acted fast and decisively. But it demands we keep more than the bulk of our fleets out on that border, till the Merseians understand we mean business about not letting them take over Jihannath." And we know from THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN that the Roidhunate was forced to back down and let go of Jihannath. 

 

What I quoted above made nonsense of Djana's complaint about the Emperor and his law, because that planet was not ruled by Terra in her childhood. It was a formerly independent border world of little interest to the Empire until Merseia tried to seize it. Terra most likely took such decisive counter measures because the location of Jihannath would make Merseian occupation of the planet a threat to the Empire. But a lengthy explanation of all this in the middle of my article would have been too disruptive!

Appendix II: L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP

 

The disappointment I felt when I tried to use the second edition of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION to find out how other science fiction writers used the idea of human/alien sex irritated me. So much so that my memory was joggled into recalling how L. Sprague de Camp had some very pertinent things to say about that topic in his novel THE HOSTAGE OF ZIR (Berkley/Putnam: 1977).

 

From THE HOSTAGE OF ZIR, Chapter Nine, page 119:

 

Reith was going to explain that hybridization of species from different

worlds, no matter how superficially alike, was a biological impossibility.

On  second thought, he decided to say nothing for the present. If he

made a point of their mutual sterility, Shosti might find his presence an

embarrassment and have him pitched off the cliff. He finished lamely:

"Nought, madam. I did but hope that--ah--the key would fit the lock."

 

"Fear not, my lord. I have made trial of you Ertsuma before and find

them compatible...."

 

And from HOSTAGE, Chapter Ten, page 146, a non-human character asked if it was possible for males and females of their two species to have children: "Reith shook his head. "That were impossible, sir. Earthmen and Krishnans are as mutually sterile as-as an aya and a shomal. Professor Mulroy, among my tourists, could explain it; something to do with the tiny cells whence living things originate. The-the-our word is chromosomes-it fit not together."

If, in a book meant by de Camp to be humorous science fiction serious, even obvious points like these were made, the authors of the entries I quoted from THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION should have done so as well!

Admiralty Center

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWO, describes Admiralty Center which we have discussed before:

a metropolis in its own right;

towering above the Rockies;

many-tinted walls;

fluoro-panels permanently necessary on the lower levels;

looping, tangled, elevated ways;

pinnacles among clouds and sunlight;

swarming, glittering, electronically controlled air traffic;

tunnels and chambers beneath the foundations;

slideways;

beehive-like humming;

underground growling.

Flandry's aircab lands on the fiftieth-level parking flange of Intelligence headquarters where a marine guard admits him to the building which has internal slideways and upbound negagrav fields. Flandry moves through crowds of different ranks and species and ascends to the ninety-seventh level and Admiral Kheraskov's office where the entire rear wall shows an animation of Jupiter seen from an approaching ship. In CHAPTER SIXTEEN, the animation is of Saturn.

The Sense Of Living In Troubled Times

A conflict is expected. Then it is known that it has begun. There is excitement and apprehension. Robert Heinlein conveys this sense in Between Planets but I do not have a copy to hand to quote from. It happens at least four times in Poul Anderson's Technic History.

Expectation

Nicholas van Rijn:

"'Story,' he said, 'it will not be announced right away, but I bet you rubies to rhubarb the Commonwealth government has already dispatched a task force to Mirkheim. And I am not the least bit sure Babur will take that meekly-weakly.' He turned to a little Martian sandroot statuette of St. Dismas that stood on the bar, his traveling companion of a lifetime. 'Better get busy and pray for us,' he told it."

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291 AT III, p. 73.

Daniel Holm:

"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we may be at war. We may already be.'"

-Poul Anderson, The People of the Wind IN Rise of the Terran Empire, pp. 437-662 AT I, p. 437.

Ilya Kheraskov to Dominic Flandry:

"'And meanwhile something else has arisen, on the opposite side of our suzerainty. Something potentially worse than any clash with Merseia.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 367-520 AT CHAPTER TWO, p. 384.

"'Here,' he said, 'is where war could really erupt.'"

-ibid., p. 386.

Diana Crowfeather to Fr. Axor:

"'Since, I've kept hearin' rumors  - ask your God to make them only rumors, will you? - Sir, we may be on the edge of a real war.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 215.

Flandry's Mission

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWO.

Investigating accusations against Governor Snelund of Sector Alpha Crucis, Kheraskov sends in both undercover agents and inspectors but also sends Dominic Flandry commanding an escort destroyer posted as a reinforcement to Llynathawr but with secret orders to investigate further. In this role, Flandry is not as conspicuous as the captain of a capital ship but nevertheless Snelund will have to receive him. Commanding a ship would in any case have been a normal part of Flandry's training because field operatives need:

"'...a broad background.'" (p. 388)

The Young Flandry Trilogy gives us the whole gamut.

This explains why Flandry, alone among Kheraskov's agents, is in a position to take highly unorthodox action that ends the extortion and cruelty in Sector Alpha Crucis and that also has major consequences several millennia later although we do not know that yet.

Kheraskov And Flandry

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWO.

Lieutenant Commander Dominic Flandry reports as ordered to Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov who commands perhaps a million Imperial Intelligence agents. When Kheraskov had asked Files who might be available with the right qualifications for a maverick job, a dozen names had come up. Flandry had checked in to Terra the previous week and is owed a lot of leave that will have to be further postponed. He is not the only man being sent to cope with a difficult situation although he is the one that will singlehandedly cut the Gordian knot.

Flandry reports not to his immediate superior but to Kheraskov first because the latter is confident that his office is not bugged and secondly because he is reasonably certain that Flandry will not betray him. Kheraskov must speak frankly about Emperor Josip and his favourite, Aaron Snelund. Flandry would gain and Kheraskov would lose, maybe be shot or enslaved, if Flandry were to repeat what he had said.

Meanwhile, Kheraskov knows what Flandry did on Merseia during the Starkad affair and has learned (at least some of) he did while stationed on Irumclaw. Great Emperor! The Service has to turn a blind eye to some escapades of competent men. There is no blackmail along the lines of "I will expose you if you expose me..." Both men understand that they are working for the good of the Empire, however they have to go about it.

On reflection, we see only two Terran Emperors. In Ensign Flandry, Georgios remains off-stage and Josip is as yet only Crown Prince. In The Rebel Worlds, Josip has become Emperor but remains off-stage. That leaves Hans in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows and his third son, Gerhard, in A Stone in Heaven. Otto had died earlier. Dietrich becomes Emperor but between volumes. Gerhart remains off-stage during The Game of Empire. In that concluding volume of the Flandry period, Karl is Crown Prince. In the next Technic History instalment, the Empire is long gone but Flandry's efforts have preserved some planetary civilizations.

Imperial Officers

Captain Chang commands the Imperial cruiser, HMS Isis, in "Outpost of Empire" and Admiral Thomas Walton's flagship in "Tiger By The Tail." Walton has become a Fleet Admiral in "Hunters of the Sky Cave." This is good future history character continuity.

Lieutenant Dominic Flandry is under Admiral Julius in A Circus Of Hells. Lieutenant Commander Flandry receives his secret orders from Vice Admiral Kheraskov in The Rebel Worlds. Captain Flandry's superior has become Admiral Fenross in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and "The Warriors from Nowhere." In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry, still Captain, receives his orders directly from Emperor Hans but suggests that Hans should:

"'...tip the word to - better be none less than Kheraskov - I'll contact him as soon as may be and make arrangements.'"

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT III, p. 383.

Flandry becomes a Vice Admiral in A Stone In Heaven and a Fleet Admiral in The Game Of Empire. We first saw him, in terms of fictional chronology, as Ensign Flandry under Commander Max Abrams and Admiral Enriques in Ensign Flandry.

That is quite a collection of Naval careers:

Chang

Walton

Flandry

Julius

Kheraskov

Fenross

Hans Molitor

Abrams

Enriques

Anomalies In The Old Phoenix

 

We are used to two levels of narrative: real world and fictional. In Lancaster, a hospital porter showed his work-mate a tabloid newspaper headline. The second man smiled in appreciation of the story, whatever it was, then asked, "Wha'? In real life or in t'soap?" First, he appreciated the "story" - the same word is used for news and for fiction - then he checked which of the two parallel narratives it belonged to: celebrity news or popular TV drama. It was (almost) as if both narratives were equally real and valid. Either, after all, could be reported in a newspaper headline.

Of course, there are also subtly different levels within fiction and metafiction. Writers can create a space in which fictional characters comment on fiction. When, in Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End, one character comments that a "reality storm...sounds like something out of Star Trek," we realize that our world is one of the many represented by the visitors in the inn. In Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix Inn between the universes, Valeria Matuchek learns of a world where Shakespeare is not the Great Dramatist but the Great Historian. All the soap operas and feature films can exist in parallel with the Shakespearean universe but here an anomaly arises.

At a certain stage in his career, the cinematic James Bond, as opposed to the literary one(s), ceases to resemble Sean Connery and begins to resemble George Lazenby (etc). No one in that universe notices because all of their memories and records change accordingly. But anyone looking into that universe from outside does notice. If that Bond were to visit the Old Phoenix, then Taverner and his wife would be puzzled unless of course they already understand such phenomena.

In a series of Dominic Flandry films, the actor should change just once, when Flandry has had his single biosculp. A cinema audience will notice that the actor has changed and might then be surprised when Kheraskov remarks that Flandry has changed his face! If it were necessary for external reasons to change the actor again later in the series, then a second biosculp could be invented even though there was only one in the books.

How To Film THE REBEL WORLDS

I would prefer an indefinite TV serial leaving nothing out to a single feature film. However, it is interesting to see how a partially authentic film adaptation is put together. Scenes can be conflated, omitted or added. In Stieg Larsson's The Man With The Dragon Tattoo, the villain, Wennerstrom, remains off-stage and Mikael Blomkvist:

receives a phone call in the Millennium office;

visits his ex-wife and their daughter;

visits his sister and her family -

- whereas, in the Swedish film adaptation:

Wennerstrom comes on-stage a couple of times;

Blomkvist has no ex-wife or daughter;

he receives the phone call while visiting his sister.

 

In Poul Anderson's The Rebel Worlds:

 

Dominic Flandry is briefed by Vice Admiral Kheraskov;

Flandry visits Shalmu en route to Llynathawr;

his rescue of Kathryn McCormac happens between chapters -

- whereas a film might:

incorporate information about Shalmu into Kheraskov's briefing;

dramatize the rescue (which maybe was left out of the novel for word count reasons).

Of course, if Kheraskov knew about conditions on Shalmu, then this would raise the question why the Empire had not taken appropriate action but such scene changes often raise such questions. If a script writer changes one plot element, then he might have to change others.

Saving Face

 

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWENTY.

Flandry and Ydwyr cooperate to hoodwink and manipulate Terran Admiral Julius!

Flandry to Ydwyy:

"'What we want is to save face all around.'" (p. 358)

This reminds us of the conclusion to the preceding volume, Ensign Flandry, where everything had to be covered up and thus Flandry got way with all the crimes that he had committed. Much the same occurs here as also at the end of the third Young Flandry novel, The Rebel Worlds, when Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov strongly suspects Flandry of treason and murder - committed for the best of reasons, of course!

At the end of Ian Fleming's Moonraker, there is a big cover up. Thus Sir Hugo Drax, publicly perceived as an English hero must continue to be perceived as such even though he was really a Nazi who tried to destroy London!

How much really happens that we do not know about?

Labyrinthine Corridors II

See Labyrinthine Corridors, Corridors Of Power and Down The Shaft.

When a machine inside an antigrav flying cab has communicated with a machine inside the Intelligence headquarters tower, the cab deposits Flandry on the fiftieth-level parking flange where his card transfers credit through the meter before the door unlocks. A marine outside the entrance verifies his ID and appointment before admitting him to the building.

He walks through several crowded halls in preference to standing on a moving strip. Since the crowd is multi-species, we remember similar scenes in Star Trek and The People Of The Wind. See Admiralty.  On this level, there are civilian visitors. However, when a negagrav field in a lift shaft has taken Flandry to the ninety-seventh level, where he halts by grasping a handhold, everyone he passes in the corridor outranks him. Kheraskov's suite needs only a scanner and a talkbox linked to a low-grade computer because:

"Everybody unimportant got filtered out at an earlier stage." (p. 16)

Labyrinthine Corridors

Occasionally a back cover blurb captures the essence of a novel.

"On Terra herself, those who occupy the labyrinthine corridors of power busy themselves with trivialities and internal politics, as outside the final darkness gathers."

-back cover blurb on Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010).

As a matter of fact, Flandry is summoned by Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov who busies himself with the fate of the Empire.

Those "labyrinthine corridors" reminded me of the tunnels and chambers which, we are told, go deep beneath the foundations of the towers of Admiralty Center. However, Kheraskov's office is on the ninety-seventh level of one such tower. Flandry, carried up by a negagrav field, walks along a corridor whose silence is deepened by the occasional soft voice or whirring machine. 

Interruption. Maybe more on this later.

The Southern Cross

The Rebel Worlds, II.

Orion Shall Rise ends with a ship questing for the Southern Cross whereas Dominic Flandry's adventure in The Rebel Worlds begins with Vice Admiral Kheraskov briefing Flandry about Sector Alpha Crucis of the Terran Empire and showing him a projection of:

"..twinned Alpha and bachelor Beta of the Southern Cross." (p. 20)

For the significance of this constellation in Poul Anderson's works, see here. (Scroll down.) See also "The Astronomy Of The Technic Civilization Saga" by Johan Ortiz here.

These are real places and Anderson invites his readers to imagine an Empire that operates on that scale. Kherakov, described as:

"...the master of perhaps a million agents through the Empire and beyond." (p. 17)

- does not expect Flandry to "'...contribute more than a quantum to our effort.'" (p. 18)

However, Flandry, an Andersonian hero who has already come to the attention of upper echelons because of the Starkad affair, will single-handedly resolve the conflict in Sector Alpha Crucis. (This parallels Falkayn's earliest exploits bringing him to van Rijn's attention.)