A Treasonable Salute

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

Sergeant Astaff at Windhome, ancestral home of the Firstman of Ilion:

"'I know Empire. Traveled through it more than once with Admiral McCormac.' As he spoke the name, he saluted. The average Imperial agent who saw would have arrested him on the spot." (p. 82)

(Aenean Nord Anglic: no definite article, "Empire," not "the Empire.")

This reference to Admiral McCormac is significant to those of us who have reread The Rebel Worlds immediately before The Day Of Their Return. When a rebellion has been defeated, there is an aftermath. This time, we get to read about the aftermath. Flandry has returned to Terra but the Frederiksens and their staff still live on Aeneas. In fact, Ivar's father has inherited the Firstmanship from his brother-in-law, McCormac. It is strange to learn for the first time about these close relatives of the McCormacs but most people have close relatives.

A whole novel's worth of narrative stretches ahead of us, making this section of the Technic History far more substantial than if it had just stayed with one central character, Dominic Flandry.

Desai And Ivar

The Day Of Their Return.

It is with a heavy heart that I turn from that pedestrian plodder, Chunderban Desai, to the charismatic criminal, Ivar Frederiksen, but we must follow the author's narrative. Ivar is the kind of fugitive action hero who is passed from pillar to post, in Ivar's case, from Windhome to the Hedin Freehold to the tinerans to the Riverfolk to the Orcans and finally, since he runs out of alternatives, to Desai and the Imperium. These formative experiences will make Ivar eventually an effective and empathetic Firstman of Ilion. In particular, he will aim to free the tinerans from their addiction to the telepathic parasites which in turn might explain the fate of the Ancients who were also the Chereionites. The Technic History is a single long narrative although its diverse details might obscure certain larger scale connections. In The Game of Empire, Axor investigates the Ancients while Tachwyr wonders about Aycharaych and, as in real history, not every question is answered. As Tolkien wrote about The Lord of the Rings, it is too short. However, Tolkien's Trilogy seems rushed - the characters depart on a long journey and, almost immediately, reach their destination. By contrast, a very great deal of time elapses between the opening Technic History instalment, "The Saturn Game," and the conclusion, "Starfog." Everything else that we read about, League, Empire etc, comes and goes between these end points.

Ambush And Windhome

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

Ivar Frederiksen and his band of Aenean guerrillas wait to ambush an Imperial patrol. When the marines arrive, we are told that:

"They were human..." (p. 77)

They might not have been, of course. The guerrillas are all human because only human beings had colonized Aeneas.

Defeated, Ivar sneaks back to Windhome, "...the ancestral seat of the Firstman of Ilion." (p. 79) We remember that, in The Rebel Worlds, Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac, Firstman and Imperial pretender, rode into Windhome with his sons. Now, McCormac's nephew-in-law, Ivar Frederiksen, Firstling (heir):

"...stumbled to press the scanner plate." (p. 79)

We are seeing the same place from a very different point of view. The Day Of Their Return is an unexpected interruption to the Dominic Flandry series and also a welcome addition to the Technic History.

On Aeneas

The Day Of Their Return, 2.

"East of Windhome the country rolled low for a while, then lifted in the Hesperian Hills." (p. 76)

The planet, Aeneas, had appeared in a single passage in The Rebel Worlds. Now Poul Anderson develops Aeneas in detail. In fact, I think that The Day Of Their Return is the only Technic History novel to be set entirely on the surface of a single planet. In this chapter, it is early summer. Imported oak and cedar are intensely green but rasmin is purple. We are not told the colour of the overarching delphi. The grass-equivalent land cover, fire trava, is not green but onyx tinged with red and yellow. In Anderson's novels, we are always aware that another planetary environment would not look like Earth. 

By day, the fire trava smells of flint and sparks. At night, it curls up into a springy mat. Ivar Frederiksen is not lying merely on a differently coloured grass. Born to this environment, he is not reflecting on Aenean plant life and indeed has problems of an entirely different order.

Oneness And Morning Star

Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 74-238.

The text begins with a quotation: Job iv, 12-16.

Chapter 1, on pp. 75-76, occupies less than one page of text and is scriptural in tone, beginning:

"On the third day he arose, and ascended again to the light." (p. 75)

The viewpoint character, Jaan, reflects:

"To be man is to be radiance." (ibid.)

It is or at least it can be but we are to learn that Jaan's "...resurrection..." (p. 76) is a deception.

The chapter ends:

"Above them paled Dido, the morning star." (p. 76)

This is the first textual indication that the novel is set not only in Poul Anderson's Technic History but also, more specifically, in the Virgilian System in Sector Alpha Crucis. Jaan must be on Aeneas where Dido is the morning star. And, since, according to Jaan, the morning star is:

"...the planet of the First Chosen..." (p. 75)

- those First Chosen are the tripartite Didonians. We know, if we are reading the Technic History consecutively, that the Didonians practise oneness. Now Jaan's inner voice, Caruith, speaks of mankind being:

"...received into Oneness..." (p. 76)

In Chapter 2, beginning on p. 76, an opening reference to Windhome and the introduction of a viewpoint character with the surname, Frederiksen, confirm that the action is on Aeneas.

A Change Of Scene

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

This novel is a change of scene: no Merseians - they will return later. First, an unentitled prologue is narrated from a Didonian point of view - incomprehensible on first reading. Secondly, in CHAPTER ONE, a prison satellite orbits around the planet, Llynathawr, and above the city, Catawrayannis. Through the viewport in his cell, Hugh McCormac sees Alpha and Beta Crucis - the latter the location of Satan.

McCormac:

remembers his home planet, Aeneas - the towers of Windhome; the Wildfoss pouring from the Ilian Shelf onto the Antonine Seabed;

recalls a conversation with a wise Wodenite;

is rescued by a team including a grinning, battle-axe-wielding Donarrian;

realizes that he must lead a revolt.

This time, the Empire's problems are internal - although there is simultaneous off-stage conflict with the Merseians. Flandry comes on-stage in CHAPTER TWO.

After The Rebellion

After the Young Flandry/The Imperial Stars Trilogy:

the story of John Ridenour, whom Flandry had met on Starkad in Ensign Flandry, continues in "Outpost of Empire";

the aftermath of the McCormac Rebellion, which had occurred in The Rebel Worlds, is described in The Day Of Their Return;

the life and career of Dominic Flandry continue in most, although not all, of what is left of the Technic History. 

The Day Of Their Return begins with Job 4:12-16.

Its opening chapter, 1, less than a page in length, ends:

"Above them paled Dido, the morning star."

-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 74-240 AT 1, p. 76.

This tells us that 1 is set on Aeneas.

 2 begins:

"East of Windhome..." (ibid.)

This tells us that 2 is also set on Aeneas. In fact, the whole novel is.

"...Kathryn McCormac, his father's sister..." (4, p. 104)

- tells us that our new viewpoint character, Ivar Frederiksen, is Kathryn's nephew. Although Kathryn's maiden name was mentioned in The Rebel Worlds - an ancestor had founded the research base, Port Frederiksen, on Dido - the change of surname makes it easy to forget these Aenean family relationships between books. Kathryn's brother and his family were not mentioned in The Rebel Worlds. The McCormacs have fled before the beginning of The Day Of Their Return. It is all one solid future history.

Aenean Night

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER SIX.

Windhome, battlemented ancestral stronghold of the Firstman of Ilion, stands on a former cape, now a cliff towering above the Antonine Seabed. The Wildfoss River cataracts past. Windhome has a courtyard and an old Firstman's office now full of modern communication equipment. From a balcony off the office, McCormac, Firstman and Admiral, watches the rise of the inner moon, Creusa, which moves visibly, its shadows moving and phases changing noticeably. It looks as if waves again move across the Antonine and surf hits Windhome ness. He also sees Dido, the evening star, where Kathryn had worked as a xenologist in the jungles. She had always loved best the moments when Creusa moved above the Antonine. He wonders whether she will ever see them again. She will not.

On Aeneas

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER SIX, is a Prologue to The Day Of Their Return, because it is set entirely on Aeneas:

the continental shelf of Ilion rises above the Antonine Seabed;

the outer moon, Lavinia, is small but visible;

Hugh McCormac and his three sons by his first wife ride not green, six-legged stathas but Aenean horses adapted to low gravity, both species imported;

fire trava, sword trava and plume trava cover the ground and curl up, conserving heat for the night;

trees are both native and imported, including oak and cedar from Terra and rasmin from Llynathawr;

a tineran caravan has set up before Windhome.

We are destined to learn a very great deal about both tinerans and Windhome in the sequel.

Introducing Hugh McCormac

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

A Circus of Hells ends with Dominic Flandry's point of view (pov). The Rebel Worlds begins with an unentitled prologue narrated from a composite Didonian pov which the reader does not understand yet. CHAPTER ONE is Admiral Hugh McCormac's pov. Flandry will return in TWO.

McCormac is imprisoned in an artificial satellite orbiting a planet called Llynathawr where there is a city called Catawrayannis. If we have read The Technic Civilization Saga consecutively, then we might remember that Catawrayannis was where Jim Ching wound up.

McCormac remembers a conversation with a quadrupedal Wodenite and is rescued by a mostly human band that also includes a quadrupedal Donarrian. Again, if we have read the Saga in order, then we have encountered both species before. In fact, our first Wodenite, Adzel, was a friend of Jim Ching.

One of McCormac's human rescuers:

"...had not lost the hit of Aeneas." (p. 377)

"...hit..." was obviously an error but I needed to check what the original would have been:

"He had not lost the lilt of Aeneas."

-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds (London, 1973), I, p. 12.

Before speaking, this guy had "...trod forth." (ibid.) "Tread" is a favourite verb of Anderson's.

Before his rescue, McCormac had reminisced about Aeneas:

rusty, tawny;

towers of Windhome;

banners;

coloured crags and cliffs;

Ilian Shelf;

Antonine Seabed;

Wildfoss cataracts;

Kathryn...

We might remember that Peter Berg in "The Problem of Pain" was from Aeneas. If we remember just some of these details, then we appreciate a future historical background.

The Hedin Freehold II

The Day Of Their Return, 4.

Aeneas, like Mars, has dried up but has not gone as far yet. The Antonine Seabed, a former sea, remains wet with canals, marshes and salt lakes sending moisture and occasional rain via westerly winds onto the edge of the Ilian continent where the Hedin Freehold is located. This plus the proximity of the Wildfoss River enables the family to farm and ranch.

 

The Hedins' staff have a feudal relationship to them just as the Hedins and other Hesperian yeomen have to the Firstman of Ilion in Windhome.

The Hedins' courtyard bustles with:

overseers

housekeepers

smiths

masons

mechanics

field hands

range hands

children

dogs

horses

stathas

hawks

farm machinery

ground and air vehicles

sounds and scents, also listed

Ivar, hidden in a storeloft, watches the oldest tenant's birthday party:

glowing house

floodlit yard

leaping, stamping Ilian dances

music whooping from a sonor

shared flagons

In any milieu, Anderson shows us human life.

East Of Windhome

Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238, 2.

The chapter begins:

"East of Windhome..." (p. 76)

- which, we might remember, was the name of Hugh McCormac's residence in Chapter VI of The Rebel Worlds.

The viewpoint character, Ivar Frederiksen, hears "...the Windfloss flowing." (ibid.) We might remember that Kathryn McCormac's maiden name was Frederiksen and that Hugh McCormac, when returning to Windhome, heard the Wildfoss River brawling in cataracts.

Ivar and his comrades ambush "Imperials." (p. 77) Later, Ivar confirms that these Imperials are "Terrans." (p. 81) Before doing that, he has entered Windhome, "...the ancestral seat of the Firstman of Ilion." (p. 79) That was Hugh McCormac's title. Sergeant Astaff, wearing Ilian uniform in defiance of Imperial decree, addresses Ivar as "'Firstli' Ivar!'" (p. 80) - then reminds him that he is, "'...next Firstman of Ilion....'" (p. 82)

Astaff also tells us:

"'I know Empire. Traveled through it more than once with Admiral McCormac.' As he spoke the name, he saluted. The average Imperial agent who saw would have arrested him on the spot." (p. 82)

Astaff begins our introduction to Aenean Anglic, with no definite article: "Empire," not "the Empire." More importantly, with Flandry, we met the Pretender McCormac; now, with Ivar, we meet a man who served under, and still salutes, the exiled Admiral McCormac.

Finally, moving the narrative forward, Astaff introduces us to Aenean religion. Ivar, as next Firstman, is:

"'Maybe last hope we got, this side of Elders returnin'.'" (ibid.)

Little does the reader yet suspect what this is going to mean although the opening chapter has given us a hint:

"-Six million years have blown by in the night, said Caruith. I remember..." (p. 76)

The issues of The Rebel Worlds are still with us and more will be added although, somewhat disjointingly, all the characters have changed.

Aeneans

Hugh and Kathryn McCormac, characters in Poul Anderson's The Rebel Worlds, are from the planet Aeneas. Chapter VI of The Rebel Worlds is set on Aeneas as is all of The Day Of Their Return. Anderson keeps minute details, such as Aenean phrases and speech patterns, consistent.

Kathryn McCormac to Dominic Flandry:

"'We had connections, we could eventu'ly raise a zoosny on Terra, even if Snelund was a pet of the Emperor's.'"

-The Rebel Worlds, V, p. 47.

Sergeant Astaff to Ivar Frederiksen, Kathryn's nephew:

"'When zoosny's died down, I'll slip your folks word you're alive and loose.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 2, p. 81.

"A tadmouse piped into the mordant wind."

-The Rebel Worlds, VI, p. 54.

("...mordant..." is another instance of the wind commenting on the action.)

"A trill sounded. [Tatiana] walked to a perch whereon, tiny and fluffy, a native tadmouse sat."

-Captain Flandry, 7, p. 122.

(Tatiana is Ivar's fiancee.)

Details in The Rebel Worlds developed further in its sequel include tinerans, the Antonine Seabed, the Wildfoss River and Windhome:

"...the ancestral seat of the Firstman of Ilion."

-The Day Of Their Return, 2, p. 79.

A Strong Sense Of Place

Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return, set entirely on the surface of the extrasolar planet, Aeneas, is a sequel to The Rebel Worlds which briefly introduces that planet. In the opening chapter of The Rebel Worlds, an Aenean imprisoned in orbit around a planet in another system remembers:

"The towers of Windhome, tall and gray, their banners awake in a whistling sky; tumble of crags and cliffs, reds, ochres, bronzes, where the Ilian Shelf plunged to a blue-gray dimness sparked and veined with watergleams that was the Antonine Seabed; clangor of the Wildfoss as it hurled itself thitherward in cataracts..."
-The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER ONE, p. 374.

We think that this sounds a solid setting suitable for a whole novel...

Aeneography

The Day Of Their Return.

Of all the planets in Poul Anderson's Technic History, we see maps only of Imhotep and Daedalus in the Patrician System. However, after reading Anderson's texts, it would be possible to draw maps of parts of Avalon, Hermes, Dennitza and Aeneas.

Ivar Frederiksen hears:

"...the sound of the Wildfoss flowing." (2, p. 76)

Thus, this is a different river from the Flone which, we saw, connects the capital city of Nova Roma and small towns like Boseville to the Cimmerian Mountains. See Boseville.

The Wildfoss provides a water table and wells for the Hedin Freehold which is east of Windhome and close to the edge of Ilion.

Place Names And Night Experiences

The Day Of Their Return.

"East of Windhome the country rolled low for a while, then lifted in the Hesperian Hills." (2, p. 76)

Merely because of its meaning, "Windhome" is already an evocative place name. It gains an extra significance because of the prominence of the wind in Poul Anderson's works. "Windhome" is akin to "Stormgate." Some parts of English cities have names like "Marketgate" and "Fishergate," derived from Danish "gata," meaning "street." See here. There are Hesperian islands on Avalon.

Ivar Frederiksen, cold and shivering in ambush, recalls a line from a Rudyard Kipling poem quoted here:

  "Brother, the watch was long and cold.

This line:

"A pair of wings likewise caught rays from the hidden sun and shone gold against indigo heaven." (p. 77) -

- recalls James Elroy Flecker. See The Hidden Sun.

The sun is named:

"Virgil slipped beneath an unseen horizon. Night burst forth." (p. 79)

This is the first indication that the action is back in the same planetary system as The Rebel Worlds - unless we have recognized the name of Hugh McCormac's former residence, Windhome.

Windholm

On Aeneas in Poul Anderson's Technic History: a hereditary seat called Windhome.

On Asborg in Anderson's For Love And Glory: a House of Windholm (scroll down) -

"They were at the original family home, on Windholm itself. A stronghold as much as a dwelling, Ernhurst offered few of the comforts, none of the sensualities in mansions and apartments everywhere else." (XII, p. 70)

Points of interest:

the dwelling is called Ernhurst, not Windholm;

Ernhurst is not yet ancestral or hereditary because Davy, Head of the House, has lived in it for the two hundred years since the colonization of Asborg;

"...on Windholm..." tells us that Windholm is an island, I think. I thought of a continent but we do not say "on North America" or "on Eurasia."

To the south, Lissa sees the sea on the horizon but to the north are forested hills and to the west are a power station, a synthesis plant and a village. So Windholm is a big island.

Wind ripples not grass but "...herbage..." (ibid.) It also booms, bites and bears odors, thus addressing four senses in total.

Lochlann

While on Gwydion, Raven, a Commandant of the Oakenshaw Ethnos in the Windhome Mountains on Lochlann, remembers his home planet:

red sun;
sheer mountains;
incessant winds;
gnarled, dwarfed trees;
moorlands;
ice plains;
salt oceans too dense for bodies to sink;
a peasant's house with a rope holding the roof against the gales;
his father's castle above a glacier;
hoofs in the courtyard;
bandits;
burned villages;
dead men;
smashed cannon.

Oh well, let's hope humanity does spread among the stars even if it takes burned villages and smashed cannon with it.

Hugh McCormac And The Tinerants

McCormac considers the tinerants camped near Windhome:

"Tomorrow these tatterdemalion wanderers would open their carnival...and it would draw merrymakers from a hundred kilometers around...though the fist of the Imperium was already slamming forward. I don't understand, McCormac thought."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 AT Chapter Six, pp. 425-426.

The Pretender cannot understand why all Aeneans are not supporting him! Well, the tinerants, an underculture without the vote, have no reason to care who is Emperor on Terra. As for the merrymakers drawn to the carnival, how many of them have as yet directly experienced the oppression that has started under their new Sector Governor? Or how many want to enjoy a carnival precisely because a war is starting? Unable to understand anyone whose views differ from his, McCormac is indeed blinkered.

Windhome And The Milky Way

"They rounded a cluster of trees and spied the castle. Windhome stood on what had once been a cape and now thrust out into the air, with a dizzying drop beneath. Lights glowed yellow from its bulk, outlying dark old walls and battlements. The Wildfoss River brawled past in cataracts."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 At Chapter Six, p. 425.

"Dawn was not far when Ivar Frederiksen reached Windhome.
"Gray granite walled the ancestral seat of the Firstman of Ilion. It stood near the edge of an ancient cape. In tiers and scarps, crags and cliffs, thinly brush-grown or naked rock, the continental shelf dropped down three kilometers to the Antonine Seabed. So did the river, a flash by the castle, a clangor of cataracts."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 2, p. 79.

So Ivar Frederiksen walks the same territory as Hugh McCormac. And above Ivar:

"...the Milky Way was a white torrent..."
-ibid.