To Outwit A Telepath

When the Scothani kidnap Dominic Flandry in "Tiger By The Tail," Chunderban Desai and Aycharaych have already met on Aeneas even though Flandry has not yet met either of these characters and also even though neither of them had yet been created when "Tiger By The Tail" was published. Aycharaych was perhaps approaching his creation since "Honorable Enemies," which introduces him, was published only four months after "Tiger By The Tail." Nevertheless, my impression from the whole of Poul Anderson's career and particularly from this early pulp period is that very little time elapsed between the conception and the completion of a work, whether short story or novel.

The theme of "Honorable Enemies" is how to lie to a telepath. Erannath had had to outwit the telepath, Aycharaych, in The Day of Their Return. He, Erannath, lying on a mattress, is constrained by a manacle around his left wrist. Aycharaych enters and holds a blaster on Ivar Frederiksen who has just discovered Erannath. Realizing that Aycharaych can read his mind, Ivar drops his knife. But Aycharaych cannot concentrate on reading both minds simultaneously and knows that Erannath is manacled. Erannath grabs Ivar's knife with his right hand, balances on one wing while protecting Ivar with the other and severs his left hand. Shot twice and mortally wounded by the blaster, Erannath nevertheless stuns Aycharaych who drops his gun which is grabbed by Ivar. Excellent teamwork although fatal for Erannath.

Why Aycharaych Talks To Erannath

Classic fictional scenario:

villain captures hero;
villain talks freely;
hero escapes...

Archetypal example:

Donovan Grant, chief executioner for SMERSH, has James Bond at gunpoint on the Orient Express and will shoot him in the heart when the train enters a tunnel;

Grant tells Bond where and when he, Grant, is scheduled to meet Rosa Klebb, Head of Operations for SMERSH;

during their conversation, Bond lights a cigarette and slips his cigarette case over his heart...

In Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return:

Aycharaych confines Erannath underground;
he talks freely;
Erannath relays information to Ivar Frederiksen who comes to rescue him...

Anderson gives Aycharaych two plausible motives for talking to Erannath:

he is lonely;
by talking, he brings associations into Erannath's conscious mind where he can read them.

Sf has a wider range of possible explanations.

How To Escape From A Telepath

In "Honorable Enemies," Dominic Flandry learns how to lie to a telepath. In The Day Of Their Return, 20, Ivar Frederiksen escapes from a gun-wielding telepath who will know what he intends to do before he does it. Ivar drops his knife and the manacled Erannath grabs it. Aycharaych cannot monitor both their minds simultaneously. Erannath severs his chained hand, attacks Aycharaych and dies from a blaster bolt but, by knocking Aycharaych aside and making him drop the gun, he has given Ivar a chance.

Erannath's last words in Planha:

"'Eyan haa wharr, Hlirr talya -'" (p. 231)

Knowing that Hlirr was his wife, we can only guess at the meanings of the other words.

Aycharaych, descended from flightless birds, spies and aubverts for Merseia whereas Erannath, a feathered flyer but not a bird, spies for Ythri and Terra. This is the single encounter between a Chereionite and an Ythrian in the Technic History.

Some Interesting Details

The Day Of Their Return.

On a cold night out of doors, an Ythrian pumps his wings slowly while asleep to prevent freezing. (9, p. 147) I have said before that the Ythrians are more at home in their natural environment than are human beings. See Ythrians And The Elements II and its links.

Imperial currency is credits whereas Aenean is libras. (p. 149)

In Chapter 9:

pp. 142-145 are Chunderban Desai's point of view;
pp. 145-159 are Ivar Frederiksen's pov;
pp. 150-151 are Jaan's pov.

Thus, the High Commissioner, the Firstling and the prophet.

However:

"Erannath stared after [Ivar] till he was gone from sight." (p. 147)

This single sentence is not necessarily Erannath's pov - anyone can see that he is staring - but it is not Ivar's either - unless Ivar can feel Erannath's stare? (Can some people do this?) Erannath rightly suspects Ivar.

Erannath

The Day Of Their Return, 8.

The Ythrian tourist on Aeneas introduces himself:

"'I hight Erannath, of the Stormgate choth upon Avalon.'" (8, p. 137)

Having read The Earth Book Of Stormgate earlier in Poul Anderson's Technic History, we are disposed to be impressed by Erannath's pedigree.

"...Erannath sat imperturbable."

-op. cit., p. 138.

However, elsewhere, Ythrians do not sit but perch. See:

 

Just Sitting

Perching

Bellatrix And The Milky Way

Hirharouk's Head

 

It is good that Ythrian involvement in the Technic History did not end with The People Of The Wind.

Intelligence-Gathering

Erannath of the Stormgate choth on Avalon travels illegally on Aeneas, claiming to be a xenologist specializing in anthropology and gathering data on humanity. In fact, he gathers military intelligence for the Domain of Ythri and the Terran Empire. Aeneas has recently rebelled against the Empire and still seethes with unrest. Seeking the cause of the unrest, Erannath uncovers a Merseian plot.

On the Imperial planet of Irumclaw, Rax, sole representative of his species, runs a spy ring that reports to a Merseian base on the planet Talwin. Dominic Flandry clandestinely enters the Merseian Roidhunate and finds a suitable terrestroid planet that becomes an advanced base of the Terran Navy.

Here we have three spies, Erannath, Rax and Flandry, who ply their trade simply because large volumes of known space are divided between two rival empires, a scenario familiar from Terrestrial history.

Keith Denison, Time Patrol Specialist, East Indo-European Protohistory, traces the migrations of Aryan clans by starting at a point when the history is known, then working backward. He and Everard, posing as passing hunters, accompanied a wagon train over the Hindu Kush (and see here) for a few weeks. Denison and an assistant accompanied the Bakhri as they went to winter in the lowlands. John Sandoval, another ethnic Specialist, traces Athabascan migrations. Everard and Floris followed the trail of the pagan prophetess, Veleda, back through time. Another Patrol agent joins the Knights Templar. Guion investigates events within the Patrol.

These agents seek to learn the course of events so that the Patrol can protect those events from:

accidental alterations by time travelers;
deliberate interventions by time travelers;
random fluctuations in space-time-energy.

Thus, in this case, there is no rival empire but there are criminals requiring the attention of a police force and:

"'...the Exaltationists, a major disruptive force...could be related to something larger...Not a larger organization or conspiracy, no. We have no reason to suspect that. But chaos itself has a basic coherence.'" (The Shield Of Time, pp. 135-136)

The ultimate enemy is chaos and, if that does not frighten a time traveler, then the time traveler is not paying attention.

Forerunners And Troubled Times

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER ONE.

In The Day Of Their Return, Aycharaych told Erannath that the Chereionites were the Ancients, Elders, Others, Foreunners, Builders, High Ones, Old Shen. Erannath relayed this information to Ivar Frederiksen. That was on Aeneas. On Imhotep, an Aenean spaceman told Diana Crowfeather about the Old Shen sites on his planet and Diana has also heard rumours that the Chereionites, whoever they were, had been responsible for such remnant walls and ruins on various planets. Those rumours must trace back to what Aycharaych told Erannath.

The Aenean spaceman thought that the Old Shen must have originated on a small, dry, thin-aired planet like Aeneas and therefore colonized such planets whereas Axor suggests that it is merely that remnants of ancient buildings are best preserved on such planets. In fact, we have learned that Chereion was such a planet. It was Forerunner ruins on his home planet, Woden, that had started Axor on his quest. Can he establish that there was a divine incarnation among the Forerunners as he believes that there was on Terra?

Diana is what I call a casual pagan. She invokes Tigery gods without believing in their literal existence and asks Axor to ask his God to make the rumours of war only rumours. Once again, the Technic History narrative moves into troubled times.

Building On A Base

A future history series is not linear but pyramidal. The earliest installments are the base:

in Heinlein's Future History, stories of technological advances;
in Anderson's Psychotechnic History, stories of recovery from nuclear war;
in Anderson's Technic History, stories introducing Ythrians and the League;
in Niven's Known Space future history, stories of interplanetary exploration.

In each fictitious history, the concluding story is the peak of the pyramid. Intermediate stories build on the base by referring back to already established aspects of the history. Lazarus Long refers to the Venerians, the Prophets and Coventry and makes dramatic use of "The Green Hills of Earth."

In Anderson's The Day Of Their Return, Ivar Frederiksen joins a band of the tinerans, or tinerants, who had appeared briefly in The Rebel Worlds and:

"A shape blotted out the sun. They bounded to their feet."
-Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), p. 136.

"They" are Ivar and two tinerans. The "shape" is an Ythrian landing! See image. Erannath of Stormgate choth on Avalon introduces himself and the history of Terran-Ythrian relationships is summarized. When Erannath reminisces about Avalon so can regular readers. We remember The Earth Book Of Stormgate which, according to its uncharacteristically accurate cover blurb, "...spans, illuminates and completes..." the history of the Polesotechnic League. Erannath's arrival is the best "building on a base" that we could have asked for.

A Unitary POV

When Jaan meets Ivar Frederiksen and Erannath, the meeting is described from Jaan's pov, e.g.:

"Jaan, who had never before seen an Ythrian in the flesh..."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 15, p. 187.

Jaan thinks that Ivar's blue eyes stare whereas Erannath's golden eyes search. We are then told what the human and Ythrian eyes see:

"They saw: a young man, more short and stocky than was common among Orcans..." (ibid.)

There follows a description of Jaan. Has the narrative shifted from the unitary pov of Jaan to a composite pov of Ivar and Erannath? No, because we are being told what he knows they see.Thus, the pov remains Jaan's. Poul Anderson rarely, if ever, loves control of pov.

Information About Avalon

The first Ythrian-related novel, The People Of The Wind, falls between the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy and The Earth Book Of Stormgate and is set mainly on Avalon whereas the second, The Day Of Their Return, falls between the Young Flandry Trilogy and the Captain Flandry series and is set entirely on Aeneas. Two Aeneans are with Ythrians on Avalon in "The Problem of Pain" whereas one Avalonian Ythrian is among Aeneans on Aeneas in The Day Of Their Return. "Wings of Victory" and The Day Of Their Return respectively open and close the Ythrian sequence.

Only "The Problem of Pain," "Wingless," "Rescue on Avalon" and The People Of The Wind are set on Avalon but Erannath in The Day Of Their Return also presents a brief description of that planet:

"'As a youth I wandered the whole of Avalon...hai-ha, storm-dawns over seas and snowpeaks! Hunting a spathodont with spears! Wind across the plains, that smelled of sun and eternity!...'"

-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February, 2010), pp. 74-240 AT 16, p. 195.

Erannath displays some talent for alliterative verse.

Hloch and Erannath, both Ythrians, impart some information about human affairs on Avalon:

"You well know how most humans on Avalon still maintain a modified form of government. However, this is of sharply limited force, both in practice and in law. It is merely their way."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM OF PAIN IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 103-105 AT p. 104.

Thank you for your understanding, Hloch. However, centuries later:

"'[Government]'s irrelevant to us. My fellow Avalonians who are of human stock have come to think likewise.'"

-The Day Of Their Return, 16, p. 196.

Two beings of different species can be "fellow Avalonians." "Human" or "Ythrian" is merely their stock!

Change On Avalon?

The Day Of Their Return.

Ivar: "'Your race doesn't have our idea of government.'"
Erannath: "'It's irrelevant to us. My fellow Avalonians who are of human stock have come to think likewise.'" (16, p. 196)

So, by this time, have all human Avalonians abandoned the Parliament of Man and joined choths to participate in Khruaths?

Erannanth asks:

"'What is freedom, except having one's particular cage reach further than one cares to fly?'" (ibid.)

This image of a cage whose sides are below our horizon, so to put it, appears somewhere else in Anderson's works. Where? It seems to have two possible interpretations. Elsewhere, it definitely means that we remain unfree even in an enlarged cage whereas here Erannath says:

"'You see no narrowing of your freedom in whatever the requirements may be for a politically independent Alpha Crucis region, any more than you see a narrowing of it in laws against murder or robbery. These imperatives accord with your desires. But others may feel otherwise.'" (ibid.)

This remains ambiguous. Freedom is not narrowed by laws against murder although it would be better to live in a society where no one ever had a motive for murder. Laws against robbery imply a property-owning society. Such societies have not always existed, need not always exist and certainly place restrictions on freedom. The earliest form of property comprised herds and slaves. Now, most of us are free to sell our labor power (ability to work) but are not guaranteed to find an employer. There is the capacity to produce enough food to feed everyone yet some people continue to starve.

That was the second time on this page of The Day Of Their Return that Erannath asked "What is freedom....?" The first time, he answered:

"'What is freedom? To do as you, an individual, choose? Then how can you be certain that a fragment of the Empire will not make still greater demands on you? I should think it would have to.'" (ibid.)

Freedom as "unmolested elbow room" was what the founders of Avalon wanted. Also, freedom in that sense is possible inside a sufficiently enlarged cage.

What Has Happened On Avalon?

The Day Of Their Return, 16.

"'Your race doesn't have our idea of government.'

"'It's irrelevant to us. My fellow Avalonians who are of human stock have come to think likewise.'" (p. 196)

 

Ivar Frederiksen and Erannath are in conversation. Centuries earlier, in The People Of The Wind, Avalon was jointly governed by the Parliament of Man and by the Great Khruath and some Ythrians were becoming Walkers, living like human beings as discrete individuals in a global community, whereas many human beings were joining choths - to live by Ythrian laws and customs.

 

Are we to understand that, by Erannath's time, the Parliament no longer exists and that all human Avalonians have either joined choths or at least decided to accept decisions made by Khruaths?

Fugitives

The Day Of Their Return, 15.

Ivar and Erannath, fugitives, tell an Orcan man a story about being marooned scientists, needing transport. Not believing them but resenting the Terrans, he drives them where they want to go in the back of his truck. In Frederik Forsyth's The Day Of The Jackal, a Frenchman has in fact seen the man that the gendarmes are after, the Jackal, but tells them that he has seen no one. There is a general opposition to authority in some European countries.

Aycharaych, manipulating the prophet, Jann, through the imposed secondary personality of "Caruith," argues that the man who had helped Ivar and Erannath is unreliable and must be killed - a sure sign that "Caruith" is no enlightened being. In CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, Mark Studdock's employers tell him that they have evidence that he has committed murder but they are prepared to cover it up because he is one of them - a sure sign that they are not to be trusted! In fact, it is they that are guilty of the murder. We see similar deceits practised in diverse works of fiction and in real life.

The People Of The Wind

The Ythrians, being flyers, compare life events to movements of the wind. Erannath has spent time with three tineran trains, the Dark Stars by the Julia River north of Nova Roma, the Gurdy Men near Fort Lunacy and Waybreak. King Samlo of Waybreak refers to two others, the Magic Fathers to whom he was apprenticed and the Glorious in Tiberia across the Antonine Seabed who make women heads of wagons. Erannath comments:

"'The differences in custom are interesting but, I judge, mere eddies in a single wind.'"

-The Day Of Their Return, 9, p. 146.

 

Tabitha Falkayn says that the Terran Empire, Greater Terra, has conquered only primitives or much weaker powers whereas the Domiain of Ythri is:

 

"'...a harder gale to buck.'"

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT III, p. 468.

 

The war will be:

 

"'...a matter of showing the Empire who flies highest!'"

-The People Of the Wind, p. 469.

 

Hloch of Stormgate writes in his introduction to the Earth Book:

 

"...because of its nearness to populous Gray, our choth receives more humans into membership than most. Hence we younglings grew up friendly with many of this race and familiar with no few of the winds that blow on their souls."

-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), p. 1.

Into Splendor

The Day Of Their Return, 20.

"He burst above, into splendor." (p. 231)

We have quoted this passage twice before. See here. (Scroll down.) However, I have not previously commented on how it reflects an experience that I had years ago. I sat for meditation while depressed about something. The depression persisted while I sat on a cushion for half an hour. However, when I stood up, I was elated. It was like flying in an airplane beneath dark storm clouds, then shooting vertically upwards into blue sky and sunlight above the clouds. I knew then that the place above the clouds exists, that I would soon be back down under the clouds and that that did not matter. That has happened once since starting just-sitting meditation in 1985. Do not practice expecting anything. But we can experience elation and splendour without having to wait for "Their Return."

Erannath tells Ivar:

"'Truth you must find in yourself, Ivar Frederiksen.'" (p. 230)

That is not exactly true. Ivar has just asked a factual question: whether Erannath serves the Empire. The answers to such questions are in the external world, not in ourselves. However, we do have to find a kind of truth - or authenticity - within ourselves. We must live by our own understanding, not by anyone else's. Ivar does. He accepts Aeneas' place in the Empire but expects the planet to outlive the Empire.

The intensification of Aenean millennialism is sufficiently explained by the defeat of the McCormac Rebellion and by the widespread Aenean belief systems, including those focused in different ways on the Ancients.

An Unexpected Contradiction, by Sean M. Brooks

In this essay I would like to comment on an unexpected contradiction I found in two of Poul Anderson's stories: THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN and "Honorable Enemies."  Reading and thinking about these stories caused me to discover a serious contradiction when Chapter 20 of THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN is studied alongside "Honorable Enemies."

Chapter 20 of TDOTR has Aycharaych, the Chereionite master spy working for Merseia, the great rival of the Terran Empire, talking far too freely to Erannath, an agent of the Domain of Ythri also working for the Empire, about his telepathic powers.  As Erannath says: "There is some ultimate quality of the mind which goes deeper than language.  At close range, Aycharaych can read the thoughts of ANY being--any speech, any species, he claims--without needing to know that being's symbolism.  I suspect what he does is almost instantly to analyze the pattern, identify universals of logic and conation, go on from there to reconstruct the whole mental configuration--as if his nervous system included not only sensitivity to the radiations of others, but an organic semantic computer fantastically beyond anything that Technic civilization has built."

However, the text I quoted from Chapter 20 of TDOTR contradicts what we see five years later (in the Technic timeline) in both the original and revised versions of "Honorable Enemies."  In this story both Dominic Flandry and Lady Aline Chang-Lei were shocked and dismayed to discover Aycharaych was a telepath while at Betelgeuse.

Why didn't Imperial Naval Intelligence inform Flandry and Chang-Lei of Aycharaych's telepathic powers before sending them to Betelgeuse?  After all, as we know from reading TDOTR, the Empire's Intelligence service discovered Aycharaych's telepathic abilities.  It would be logical to think its best agents would be informed about Aycharaych's powers.  The simplest explanation I can think of for this contradiction is that Poul Anderson forgot to keep in mind the new information about Aycharaych while he was revising "Honorable Enemies."  And because I believe Anderson wanted to keep the new version as close as possible to the original form of the story (although that meant contradicting what we see in TDOTR).

One point which puzzles me is why Sandra Miesel, an excellent commentator on the works of Poul Anderson, did not see how Chapter 20 of TDOTR contradicted "Honorable Enemies."  No mention is made of this contradiction in her two essays about the Flandry stories: her "Introduction" for ENSIGN FLANDRY (Gregg Press, 1979); or, "Afterword: The Price of Buying Time," for A STONE IN HEAVEN (Ace Books, 1979).

I am frankly astonished to realize I may be the first reader or commentator who saw how THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN contradicted "Honorable Enemies" on an important point of plot development.  I was reminded of what Anderson himself said: "Indeed, various eagle-eyed individuals have long since pointed out this or that contradiction to me" ("Concerning Future Histories," BULLETIN OF THE SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA, Fall 1979, page 13).

Memories Of Avalon

It is possible to experience nostalgia within a future history. If we have read Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History in chronological order of fictitious events, then The Earth Book Of Stormgate and The People Of The Wind have preceded The Day Of Their Return. In Day, Erannath of Stormgate Choth on Avalon reminisces about Avalon and we know what he is talking about:

"'As a youth I wandered the whole of Avalon...hai-ha, storm-dawns over seas and snow peaks! Hunting a spathodont with spears! Wind across the plains, that smelled of sun and eternity!...'" (Captain Flandry, Riverdale, NY, 2010, p. 195)

Later, he became a spacehand and we have also read several stories about spacemen earlier in the History. So, quite unexpectedly, a lot that we have previously read gives meaning to this brief conversation between Erannath and Ivar but it is probably quickly forgotten when their conversations are interrupted by the important local figure, "'The High Commander!'" (p. 196) whom they are waiting to meet.

As I have advised before, read everything written by Poul Anderson at least twice. The second time, before turning the page to learn what happens next, pause to appreciate all the descriptive and background details on the current page.

Human Beings Of A Special Sort

The Day Of Their Return, 8.

Erannath says:

"'As an Avalonian, I am naturally familiar with humans, but of a rather special sort. Being on Aeneas, I am taking the opportunity to become acquainted, however superficially, with a few more.'" (p. 138)

Ivar Frederiksen thinks that Erannath must be spying for the Domain of Ythri. We will later learn that in fact this Avalonian Ythrian is spying for both Domain and Empire. But becoming acquainted does not differ from spying.

Human Avalonians are indeed of a rather special sort but so must be all human beings who have adapted to an extrasolar planetary environment:

"Folk were mainly human, but it was unlikely that many had seen Mother Terra. The planets where they were born and bred had marked them. Residents of Imhotep were necessarily muscular and never fat."

-Poul Anderson, The Game of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 197.

"'...the crew seem to be human. We have no record of their anthropometric type, but they don't look as odd as people do after several generations on some planets I could name.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Flandry's Legacy, pp. 709-794 AT p. 715.

"We know that other branches of humanity have their distinctive ways, and hear rumors of yet stranger ones."

-ibid., p. 718.

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history series, Jinxians are short, wide and jet black because they lived for generations in high gravity under Sirius.

There are strong links between The Day Of Their Return and "Starfog." Also, Talwin has turned out to be a strong link between three instalments of the Technic History.

Erannath On Avalon

The Day Of Their Return.

Erannath of Stormgate Choth, confined in a cave on Aeneas, reminisces:

wing-free, he wandered across all Avalon in his youth;

he saw "'...storm-dawns over seas and snowpeaks!'" (16, p. 195);

he hunted a spathodont with a spear;

he remembers winds across plains;

he became a tramp spacehand, often staying for a while on other planets;

he married Hlirr on a planet with rainbow rings and silver oceans;

they returned to Avalon and raised a family, now grown;

he is an anthropologist (spy) but, it turns out, for Empire as well as for Domain.

Connections

A long future history series incorporates many internal interconnections - or, as we might have called them when the Careers Service was briefly renamed the Connexions Service, interconnexions.

I tried to show this when summarizing the history of Ythrians within the Technic History here. For example, Nicholas van Rijn is a remote ancestor of Tabitha Falkayn and thus also of any children that Tabitha will have when married to Christopher Holm.

However, I failed to mention that it is The Earth Book Of Stormgate that informs us of:

Hloch and his mother, Rennhi, from whom he inherited the task of completing the Earth Book;

the first human-Ythrian contact;

the exploration of Gray/Avalon;

David Falkayn's discovery of Mirkheim and van Rijn's later journey to that planet;

the two-stage colonization of Avalon;

other events not directly related to Ythrians.

In Robert Heinlein's five-volume Future History, Volume IV, Methuselah's Children, contains the maximum number of cross-references to other volumes, even including a mention of the lost spaceship, Vanguard, which is the setting of Volume V. Thus, Methuselah's Children strongly unifies Heinlein's Future History. The Ythrians play a similar role in the Technic History. The mere presence of Erannath in The Day Of Their Return has diverted our attention from that novel back to The People Of The Wind and the Earth Book. Hloch cannot mention Flandry but certainly mentions the Empire. Flandry and Erannath are contemporaries and Flandry and others mention not only the Domain but also, more specifically, Avalon. In fact, I also forgot to mention that human agents of Merseia on Diomedes passed themselves off as Avalonians.