Ferune's Office

The People Of The Wind, II.

Ferune of Mistwood Choth is First Marchwarden of the Lauran System. Since we are looking for scenes set on Avalon, we notice that Ferune's office in the Lauran Admiralty has a large window opening onto:

"...garden-scented breezes and a downhill view of Gray and the waters aglitter beyond." (p. 454)

This might not sound like very much. However, in Chapter I, we shared Arinnian's enjoyment of his aerial view of Gray, Falkayn Bay and the Hesperian Sea. Therefore, this view through Ferune's window now means quite a lot to any reader who appreciates such sensory details. 

There is one more such detail in this chapter. Daniel Holm, Second Marchwarden, visits his superior's office. They converse and:

"For a while, silence dwelt in the room. The yellow light of Laura cast leaf shadows on the floor. They quivered." (p. 456)

How many sf authors would have added such a detail? It immensely enhances our sense of these two beings discussing their war preparations and pausing for reflection. Far from existing in a vacuum, they live and breathe on Avalon in the Lauran System in the Domain of Ythri. We should continually remember this and their author ensures that we do.

Holm And Avalon

The People Of The Wind, Chapter II opens:

"Avalon rotates in 11 hours, 22 minutes, 12 seconds, on an axis tilted 21 degrees from the normal to the orbital plane. Gray, at about 43 degrees N., knows short nights always; in summer the darkness seems scarcely a blink." (p. 452)

The first sentence reads like the omniscient narrator imparting physical information directly to the reader. In the second sentence, the phrase, "...the darkness seems...," maybe reflects the collective experience of the Avalonians rather than just another fact about their environment. However, the third sentence, which completes the opening paragraph, reads:

"Daniel Holm wondered if that was a root of his weariness." (p. 452)

Thus, we learn that the entire paragraph, and indeed the entire ensuing chapter, are narrated from the point of view of Daniel Holm who had conversed with his son, Christopher, at the beginning of Chapter I. It is Holm that knows and reflects on Avalon's rotation period. The omniscient narrator, who is always present however marginally, has been pushed further into the background.

Holm goes on to reflect that his ancestors have lived on Avalon for centuries and indeed had:

"...arrived with Falkayn." (ibid.)

David Falkayn, whom we first saw as a Polesotechnic League apprentice, has become a historical figure. That is what happens in future histories. When James Blish's John Amalfi, preserved for centuries by antiagathics, revisits the planet, He, he learns to his embarrassment that the highest mountain on the planet has been named Mount Amalfi.

On Avalon, the city of Gray is on Falkayn Bay:

the Grand Survey ship, Olga, under Captain Gray discovered Avalon;

David Falkayn founded the colony on Avalon;

Falkayn's granddaughter named the planet.  

Choth Life

In "Wingless," the Weathermaker Choth is a single extended household, its core families housed in a tall, balconied stone tower overlooking:

a paved courtyard;

rambling wooden buildings;

meadows grazed by meat animals;

a mixed Terrestrial-Ythrian ecology of grass, clover, starbell, wry, oak, pine, braidbark and copperwood;

beyond that cultivated area, native susin, chasuble bush, janie and, when Nat Falkayn looks out from a balcony, a flock of draculas in flight.

In The People Of The Wind, the Stormgate Choth occupies the Andromeda Range and includes Lythran's extended household whose senior members and their children are housed in an old stone tower in the middle of a plateau of Mount Fairview. Unmarried family members and retainers with their families live in lower wooden buildings with amberdragon and starbells growing on their roofs. Between these buildings, and also between the sheds, barns and mews, grow Ythrian trees:

braidbark

copperwood

lightningrod

jewelleaf

- and native flowers:

janie

livewell

Buddha's cup

harp vine

There are no native Avalonians to bestow names like "Buddha's cup"! All the names have to be either Anglic or Planha.

Apart from a few maintenance staff, Lythran's entire household flies under its own power to the regional Khruath on another mountain, the only exception being Arinnian who, lacking wings, flies with a gravbelt. En route, they meet other Stormgate families. At the Khruath, they meet members of other choths. We might have appreciated a description of the territory that they fly over. Instead, we read a traditional carol sung by Eyath and translated into Anglic by Arinnian which contains the memorable line:

"High is heaven and holy." (I, p. 452)

We know that an Ythrian's business activities need not be confined to within his or her own choth because youths from Stormgate, Many Thermals and The Tarns have founded a silvicultural engineering firm. We read in Chapter V that inter-species economic activities are a wonderland.

Avalon As A Real Place

The People Of The Wind.

Avalon seems like a real place because:

there is a wealth of environmental and geographical detail;

there is recognizable historical change and progression;

many individual characters live there.

Arinnian sets off to fly from Gray on Falkayn Bay to Lythran's eyrie in the Weathermother and passes over the countryside outside the town. We would like to accompany him on his long journey over Avalon. However, after a double space between paragraphs, Arinnian is suddenly found to be benched with young Ythrians in the dining hall at Lythran's and Blawsa's place. A narrative, unlike real life, can jump ahead in time! He is not seated close to his childhood friend, Eyath, daughter of his host and hostess, but she and he exchange a look and leave the dining hall together. They sit on a platform near the top of a copperwood. The different kinds of trees are described in detail. The human male and Ythrian female see the moon, Morgana, and the constellations, Wheel, Swords, Zirraukh and Ship.

A real place - that will suffice until human beings really do colonize extra-solar planets.

Arinnian Over Gray And Falkayn Bay

The People Of The Wind.

My favourite prose passage in this novel is the conclusion:

"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of joy.

"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 662)

These two short paragraphs are comparable to the conclusions of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and "Star of the Sea," which I have also quoted.

My favourite scene in The People Of The Wind is in Chapter I when Arinnian, ascending from Gray on antigrav, enjoys the view. We have described this scene before and need not repeat every detail but they include:

the town of Gray sprawling among green trees and susin and colourful gardens on hills surrounding Falkayn Bay;

the Hesperian Sea, sun-flared silver, horizonward sapphire;

a cargo vessel from Brendan's Islands;

above, patrolling space warcraft (war is imminent);

on the inland horizon, the Andromedas/the Weathermother;

outside Gray, Ythrian ranches, human farms and native ecology.

We can see why the colonists settled the Hesperian Islands before tackling this Coronan continent. Beyond Hesperia and over the horizon is Oronesia. We will learn more about that archipelago and also about Brendan's and other islands later in this novel.

It is human beings that build cities, only two on Avalon: Gray and Centauri. But some Ythrians live in highrises in Gray. Thus have the two species come to intermingle. Christopher Holm/Arinnian has joined Highsky Choth which is based in the Weathermother but has agreed with his parents that he will remain in Gray to complete his mathematical studies. Choths have been accepting human members for the past century. Thus, Avalonian history has progressed a long way from "Rescue on Avalon."

Choth Membership

"...because of its nearness to populous Gray, our choth receives more humans into membership than most."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION WINGS OF VICTORY IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 75-77 AT pp. 75-76.

Although advertised here as the introduction to only one story, this passage in fact introduces the entire The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

This passage and The People Of The Wind are the only places where we read about human membership of choths. When Christopher Holm is Arinnian of Stormgate, he speaks Anglic as if interpreting from Planha. Like many other "birds," he imitates Ythrians by not wearing clothes except, e.g., when he needs a coverall and boots to fly by gravbelt from Gray to Lythran's eyrie in the Weathermother. He prefers individual flight to much faster travel by aircar.

"Birds" live under choth law and custom. If I were a human Avalonian, then I would want to join a choth and participate in Khruaths, not Parliament, but it would have to be a choth that combined (what some of us would regard as) the best of human and Ythrian customs. Thus, no deathpride or duels and Oherran only by boycott, not by violence. These terms are explained elsewhere on this blog. Would Wyvans accept such a choth? The choth would appoint its own Wyvans. We are given to understand first that choths vary a great deal and secondly that both species influence each other so I think that my proposal would receive some support.

Donovan And Holm

"for we're riding out to Terran sky!

"Terran sky! Terran sky!"

-Poul Anderson, "Sargasso of Lost Starships" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 367-436 AT p. 436.

A song sung by Basil Donovan who had resisted the Terran Empire but has now been incorporated into it. These words could mean either riding out to fight Terrans or riding out to claim sky for Terra:

"The thought came all at once that it could be a song of comradeship, too." (ibid.)

"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we could 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.

Points to note:

by "we," Holm means Avalon;

by "at war," he means "at war against the Terran Empire";

that is the same Terran Empire that had annexed Donovan's home planet, Ansa, a century previously;

Donovan sings on p. 436 and Holm speaks on p. 437, unusually without any interval of a blank page or an internal title page;

"Sargasso of Lost Starships" was first published in January, 1952, whereas The People Of The Wind was first published in February-April, 1973;

thus, we can expect to find major differences in the writing despite the retroactively decreed proximity of these two works as instalments of a single future history series.

The Earth Book And A Novel

The Afterword to the Earth Book includes the sentence:

"Now The Earth Book of Stormgate is ended."

-Poul Anderson, AFTERWORD IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), p. 323.

It is signed:

"Hloch of the Stormgate Choth

"The Earthbook of Stormgate" (ibid.)

"Earth Book" is correct because it appears on book covers, title pages and dust jackets.

Because we are currently studying Avalon and have reread the relevant Earth Book instalments, we now return to The People Of The Wind which provides the background for Hloch's Earth Book introductions. The short stories have established that Avalonian geography includes Hesperian Islands and a Coronan continent but the novel discloses several further details.

Ecologies On Avalon

"Rescue on Avalon."

"While men and Ythrians could eat many of the same things, each diet lacked certain essentials of the other. For that matter, native Avalonian life did not hold adequate nutrition for either colonizing race. The need to maintain separate ecologies was a major reason why they tended to live apart." (pp. 318-319)

The two species had seemed to be practising segregation but this was only a preliminary, albeit long-term, precaution. The Wyvan of Stormgate says:

"'Indeed, the time is over-past for our two kinds to intermingle freely.'" (p. 322)

Indeed, later, human beings will join choths and many from Gray, when it exists, will join Stormgate. 

Was Jack Birnam unwise to hike alone in the Weathermother? By our current rules, yes. The story shows that high tech can minimize but maybe not eliminate the dangers. Ayan, the Wyvan, scouting their new territory for his choth, had not known that it was wrong for an individual to venture unaccompanied under ironleaf trees which impede emergency calls by absorbing radio waves. The trees draw metal from the soil and concentrate particles. Thus, their leaves shine and attract bugs. Evolution finds a use for metal.  

Technology And Nature

"Rescue on Avalon."

Because none of his friends are free to accompany him, Jack Birnam hikes alone into the Weathermother where, as often on rapidly spinning Avalon, there is a sudden storm. His sleeping bag with hood and breathing mask can keep him warm at lower than Avalonian temperatures. A duraplast sheet keeps off hail and debris. Explosive pegs hold the collapsible alloy frame firm in the bedrock. His pocket transceiver can summon an aircar from a nearby rescue station if necessary - as long as the storm does not prevent air travel. Thus, technology more or less keeps a lone individual safe in a wilderness.

Ayan, Wyvan of Stormgate, flies into the Weathermother, wearing only belt, pouch and dagger. Ythrians, unclothed and able to hunt live prey, are considerably closer to nature than their fellow Avalonians of human stock.

Ivar Holm points out to Jack that, in an inter-species exchange, human beings gained fertile prairies and lost only mountains which are humanly useful only for recreation and then only by a few. This is an excellent story of inter-species cooperation.