"Rain Roared"

Poul Anderson, The Boat Of A Million Years (London, 1991).

"Rain roared." (p. 315)

This blog has sometimes considered Poul Anderson's descriptions of seasons and the weather. "Rain roared" is:

the opening sentence of Chapter XV;
two words - noun and verb, subject and predicate;
two syllables;
alliteration, with not two but three "r"'s;
a simple scene setter;
onomatopoeiac? 

We soon read that this rain, with thunder and lightning, falls on "...the new Empire State Building..." (p. 315). Thus, we are in New York and in a particular period. The image shows rain in New York. We have been with Manson Everard when he saw lightning from his New York apartment but that was in the timeline guarded by the Time Patrol, not in this timeline affected by the Eight Immortals.

I have mentioned the wrench when starting each new chapter in Boat: new period, new place, often new characters. In this chapter, we must adjust to reading about Mama-Lo Laurace Macandal and Cindy, without yet knowing whether either of them is an already familiar character with a new name. It is good to ease into the chapter by first considering just two words and the weather. For me right now, Mama-Lo will have to wait until tomorrow or maybe the day after since tomorrow should be morning Latin preparation, afternoon a family outing and evening meditation group. Onward, Earthlings!

Wind And Rain

The Corridors Of Time, CHAPTERs TEN-ELEVEN.

In Viborg, Lockridge finds the sound of church bells and the sight of the cathedral lovely but:

"The wind shifted and filled his nose with graveyard stench." (p. 90)

In other words, the wind comments and reminds him that he is in danger of death.

Lockridge's ally, Fledelius, points his crossbow at the knight who has arrested Lockridge and Auri and suggests that they settle their dispute peacefully:

"A silence closed in that made Lockridge's breath more loud in his ears than the wind and thickening rain outside." (p. 93)

The wind often emphasizes significant pauses in the dialogue.

"Rain roared on the hut." (p. 94) (See also Rain, Wind And Saxon Galleys.)

They have escaped and are with friends although the elements continue to remind them that they are surrounded by hostility.

Wind and rain forever, it seems.

Rain, Wind And Saxon Galleys

King Niall's men bring bad news:

"'The Romans took us unawares...
"'Suddenly, there they were, two Saxon galleys...
"'It was butchery...
"'...most died and we lost everything, all we had won in two years of work.'"
-Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf, Chapter XVI, section 2, p. 317.

Do not feel any sympathy. Two years of work means two years of plunder. All that they lost was what others had lost to them. After such a speech, we expect some response from nature and are not disappointed. Right on cue:

"Rain roared...
"Wind shrilled...
"Cold and darkness gnawed..." (ibid.)

We find this appropriate and therefore are surprised by the opening phrase of the following sentence:

"It was wrong weather..."

- but the sentence concludes:

"...for this festival time." (ibid.)

It is nevertheless right for the bearing of bad news. To add insult to injury, the two Saxon galleys are recognized as the very two that were recently captured from Niall himself when he raided the site of Ys and was ambushed there. It is suggested that whoever captured the ships might have sold them to someone else but Niall replies:

"'They would not'...a gust of wind keened at the words." (p. 318)

The wind that has seemed to comment before does so again. It is like a Greek chorus in the Andersons' text. Niall knows that Grallon, the King of Ys, is behind it. Niall has destroyed Ys and it still haunts him.

Shortly afterwards, Niall reflects:

"...time slips through our fingers till at last we hold no more of it." (p. 320)

His druid companion replies to this unspoken thought:

"'A name can abide...'" (ibid.)

- and we remember:

"Kine die, kinfolk die...
"This I know that never dies:
"How dead men's deeds are deemed."

Four Senses In The Jungle

For Love And Glory.

Lissa and Hebo track the missing Susaian, Orichalc, through the Freydisan jungle, an environment providing much scope for multi-sensory descriptions:

gloom;
rank odors;
sticky sweat, both felt and smelled;
"Cries, croaks, whistles..." (XXXVI, p. 197)

"Rain rushed, wind brawled, branches creaked." (XXXVII, p. 201)

Compare "Rain Roared."

What with meditating and all, I usually avoid alcohol but this evening we received a free bottle of wine when we ate in the Borough:

I HAVE drunk ale from the Country of the Young
-copied from here.

Have I not drunk Soma?
-copied from here.

"In the secret high place of the heart there are two beings who drink the wine of life in the world of truth."
-Katha Upanishad, Part 3.

Weather And Seasons

As events in Ys approach a climax, weather conditions and seasonal changes seem to sympathise.

"Rain lashed from the west..." (p. 269)

"Weather cleared. The morning sun stood low...nearly heatless." (p. 272)

"The afternoon grew mild." (p. 275)

"Clouds drove low on a wind that howled..." (p. 278)

"Weather turned clear and cold." (p. 295)

"Wind woke anew..." (p. 300)

"The winter sun was barely aloft." (p. 305)

"Rain and sleet scourged the streets." (p. 307)

"...Gratillonius stood before the winter Council..." (p. 309)

"Snow fell in small dry flakes." (p. 328)

"Weather turned bitterly cold and clear." (p. 333)

"Snow returned, this time on a wind from the sea..." (p. 342)

"During the night snowfall ceased and freezing weather moved in." (p. 347)

"The cold spell ended. Snow began to melt." (p. 366)

"Rain mingled with sleet dashed down the streets of Ys. Wind clamoured, Ocean roared. This had become a stormy year." (p. 368)

"Clouds raced on a wild wind." (p. 380)

"Wind blustered outside." (p. 387)

"The wind yowled." (p. 390)

"A gale from the west drove an onslaught of rain before it." (p. 392)

" 'The weather...It's been vile throughout, this year.' " (p. 394)

"Suddenly came a quiet spell among the storms ramping over Armorica at that winter's close." (p. 394)

"The night...was the first clear one of their homeward journey." (p. 406)

"Foul weather returned and worsened. Wind came..." (p. 410)

"Ocean raged...Wind was an elemental force...The blast had been strengthening throughout this day...The Wood of the King surged under the storm..." (p. 413)

"If the storm got much worse, they would have been in danger." (p. 416)

"Still the wind mounted. By dawn it was like none that chronicles remembered. And still it mounted." (p. 422)

"The wind wuthered, the sea thundered." (p. 425)

"By sunset the wind had indeed lessened. It was still such as few could travel in..." (p. 428)

"The wind keened. The sea rumbled." (p. 432)

Also, a Witch-Queen learns by clairvoyance that above the clouds there is an unpredicted lunar eclipse. And shortly afterwards there is a comet. All this parallels the spiritual storms experienced by the characters and expresses the turmoil of their Gods.

"Spite Spat"

(Linking to earlier posts leads to rereading some of those earlier posts and possibly also to editing their spelling or punctuation as well as to adding a few more links. However, I am currently experiencing some technical difficulties with editing. Hopefully, these will be resolved. The blogs are always a work in progress. If you notice any textual infelicities, they may be ones that I either want to correct or would if I knew of them.)

Someone critiquing Isaac Asimov remarked that words can be like clear glass or stained glass, i.e., either we look through the words at their subject-matter or we appreciate the words themselves. Asimov's prose is clear glass. Poul Anderson's is both. I have referred to his many dramatic two-word sentences like "Rain roared." However, the most expressive of such mini-sentences has to be:

"Spite spat."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Three, Chapter III, p. 196.

Gunnhild unleashes venom against her enemy, Egil. Fortunately, although Gunnhild is the title character of the novel, many of its chapters focus instead on other, more sympathetic, characters like the Christian King Haakon. A long narrative presented entirely from Gunnhild's vengeful viewpoint would be both unpalatable and indigestible.

When the family goes unwillingly into exile, Gunnhild's seven-year-old daughter asks:

"'Mother, Mother! We're b-bound for greatness. Aren't we?'" (p. 200)

A young girl has been brought up not to appreciate life but to expect "greatness." Good work, Gunnhild.

Cleansing Rain

Poul Anderson, New America, "Passing The Love Of Woman."

Mary cannot live in the Rustumite lowlands, except in a pressurized house or helmet, whereas Dan, who can live there comfortably, wants to spend most of his life there. They cannot marry. When they have realized this:

"...a rising wind roared in treetops; and over the lake came striding the blue-black wall of a rainstorm that would cleanse and cool." (p. 83)

When Dan realizes that he should instead marry Eva, wind skirls, thunder cannonades, stinging rain smites his face and Eva challenges him "...to make a new beginning." (p. 84)

The rain symbolically cleanses Dan and the story ends with the word, "...beginning."

Dan Coffin has come a long way from the small boy lost in the lowlands and still has a long way to go to become a respected elder statesman and great-grandfather. That is life and the rest is future history.

Latter Days

The last time Queen Gunnhild walks and talks with her son Harald, Poul Anderson describes a "...boundless blue..." sky, clouds, mist, green growth, trees, footfalls, birdcalls "...and a lark high overhead."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Six, Chapter XVIII, p. 536.

We look for at least one more sense and find it in the last sentence of quite a long descriptive paragraph:

"Thyme lent a slight sharpness to sweet earth-smells." (p. 537)

Later, because of Harald's ill-advised and ill-fated expedition, Gunnhild and her two surviving sons must go into exile in the Orkneys for the third time and the pathetic fallacy returns:

"The wind howled louder. Rain roared. A burst of hail rattled over shingles and timber. This was the first bad weather in a mild and bountiful summer. It was as if the land were casting them out."
-Chapter XXII, p. 552.

Or is it fully the pathetic fallacy when the author points it out instead of leaving it to the reader to notice it?

"...folk streamed to welcome Harald Grenska and join his host...the North had risen on behalf of its Jarl..."
-Chapter XXII, p. 550.

Despite this overwhelming popular vote of no confidence, Gunnhild's sons plan long term to reconquer Norway. I would be ashamed to assert my right to rule after such a decisive rejection.

Gunnhild prays for a sign. If if is from Christ, then she will suppress paganism. If it is from Odin, then she will burn churches. If it is from the elements, then she will go easier on the Finns. It is to be hoped that the gods and powers unite to reply, "No sign."

Economical Writing

A sentence needs a subject and a predicate which are usually a noun or pronoun and a verb. Poul Anderson's descriptive passages are usually economical, e.g.:

"Wind whittered." (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 101)

Elsewhere, wind wails, whines, wakes and wuthers. (See here.)

"Rain roared." (Here.)

Short sentences, maybe too short for some of us to think of, but they serve their purpose and therefore are right in their contexts. One rule of writing is never to write a longer sentence, paragraph, text or series if a shorter one will suffice. Anderson's novels are compact, usually quite short. When they are longer, it is because they have more content, not just more words.

Weather And Wind In Eriu

The Dog And The Wolf, XVI, 2.

When, shortly after Beltene, Niall's men report that "the Romans," Gratillonius' men, have stolen all their loot:

"Rain roared on the thatch of the King's House. Wind shrilled. Cold and darkness gnawed against the fires inside. It was wrong weather for this festival time." (p. 317)

Wrong weather for Beltene but appropriate weather for the King to hear bad news. Niall knows that his old enemy, the King of Ys, is still at work and when he confirms this:

"...a gust of wind keened at the words." (p. 318)

That keening is a foreboding. Niall will again attack Armorica and this time will lose neither his son nor his fleet but his life.

Yrsa And Edh II

When Helgi sees Yrsa:

"This was a windy day." (Hrolf Kraki's Saga, p. 70)

The characters feel and maybe hear the wind.

"Sunlight speared through hurrying clouds, sheened on the waters, then was gone again as shadow swept across the world."

They see shafts of sunlight, wind-driven clouds and light and shadow on water.

"Waves boomed..."

Sound, indeed noise.

"...rushed afresh, gray, green, and steel-blue."

Multiple colors.

"The wind whistled..., roared...and soughed..."

The wind is indeed heard - as are gulls.

"It was cold and tasted of salt..."

So we know how the wind feels - and tastes. The only sense not addressed is smell.

When Edh and Heidhin see the Roman ship, tall clouds are:

"...dazzlingly white, in a blue without bounds." (Time Patrol, p. 586)

Sight, with two intense colors.

"Light and heat fell from the sun like rain."

Heat as well as light. I have never found them compared to rain before.

Poppies are red and gorse is yellow.

"...they caught a scorched smell of spurrey; bees hummed in a silence through which larksong drifted earthward; then wings racketed, a grouse hastened low overhead..."

The scent of a plant and four appeals to the sense of hearing: humming bees, singing lark, racketing wings and silence.

Sight, heat, a smell and sounds - only the sense of taste is not addressed.

Wind Hooting, Biting And Scattering

The Dog And The Wolf, XII, 1.

When the scheming and conniving Procurator Bacca says that:

"'the interests of Rome...are the interests of civilization itself...'" (p. 235):

"Wind hooted and dashed rain across roof tiles." (ibid.)

Roof tiles represent civilization. Hooting wind represents the hostile elements but also Bacca's threat to the freedom of the former Ysans.

When Gratillonius informs his people of their admittance into the "Republic" (Empire), the weather, including of course the wind, provides a pathetic fallacy:

"The market day shone bright. Clouds scudded over the blue, wavelets ran upon rain puddles, the woods tossed and distantly roared as wind bit into them, leaves broke free of yonder red-brown-yellow minglement and scrittled across fields, the last migratory birds trekked aloft with cries ringing as cold as the air, all the world seemed to be in departure. That, at least, was right, thought Gratillonius." (p. 237)

This time, the viewpoint character confirms the pathetic fallacy: the brightness of a new beginning and the departure of olden freedoms.

When he has finished speaking:

"The wind scattered his words with the dead leaves." (p. 240)

Section 2 begins:

"He shut it out when he closed the door of Cadoc's house behind him." (ibid.)

"...it..." is the wind, ever present although we can shut it out for a while.

Some Details On Roland

"The Queen of Air and Darkness."

The opening passage describes a boy and a girl, then informs us that:

"Their age was about sixteen, but they did not know this, considering themselves Outlings and thus indifferent to time, remembering little or nothing of how they had once dwelt in the lands of men." (p. 3)

They did not know this... As in several passages written by Stieg Larsson, this sentence in a Poul Anderson narrative does not present the point of view of either of these two newly introduced characters. Instead, the omniscient narrator directly - and unusually - informs us, the readers, of a fact about the characters that they themselves did not know. 

(Most readers neither notice nor reflect on this, of course!)

They are on Roland, a planet that is so terrestroid that human beings can not only breathe the air but also eat the food and drink the water. (p. 11) How plausible is that?

One "outwayer" farmer hopes to harvest:

yerba hay;

bathyrhiza wood;

pericoup;

glycophyllon;

chalcanthemum to be sold by city florists;

rover pelts for the furriers. (p. 26)

Every fictional Andersonian planet has a rich and detailed ecology. 

And, like nearly every other Andersonian environment, this one also includes loud wind and roaring rain:

"...outside, wind hooted, lightning flared, rain crashed on roof and walls and roared down to swirl among the courtyard cobblestones." (ibid.)

As ever, that wind punctuates conversations and emphasizes dramatic pauses in the characters' dialogue. When the farmer has spoken intensely and his family has grown still:

"Wind hooted beyond the walls and rattled the storm shutters." (p. 27)

With this backup, the farmer repeats his entreaty to Barbro Cullen not to venture into forbidden territory:

"'Don't you.'" (ibid.)

A Challenge And The Seasons

 

Gallicenae.

At any time, the narrative of The King of Ys can be interrupted by a challenge in the Wood and, theoretically, Gratillonius could lose such a challenge although we know that that is not going to happen. The first such challenge is easily disposed of in V, 4. Disgusted by his own slaughter of an unworthy opponent, Gratillonius inwardly calls on Mithras to end the Three. Another god will do this. (Some say that the true God hears all prayers.)

It is three years after the events of Roma Mater and the seasons return:

"Up from the South wandered spring..." (VI, 1, p. 116)

"At high summer, the rain sometimes fell nearly warm through unmoving air." (VII, 1, p. 132)

"As closely as it followed winter solstice, the Birthday of Mithras at Ys gave a glimmer of daylight, barely more than six hours, in a cavern of night." (VII, 4, p. 153)

"The equinoctial gales blew out of Ocean like longings,to wake the soul from winter drowse." (VIII, 1, p. 159)

"Early summer brought a spell of calm, light, warmth." (VIII, 2, p. 168)

"An autumn storm roared, whistled, flung rain and hail, throughout one night." (VIII, 4, p. 181)

"Winter's early night had fallen..." (IX, 1, p. 198)

"As summer waned, Ys lay in a chill dankness and a white blindness that seemed to go on without end." (X, 1, p. 222)

"Often around the autumnal equinox, storms caused Ys to lock its sea gate..." (XI, 4, p. 253)

"The months wheeled onward, through winter and spring and again to summer." (XII, 2, p. 269)

"At Lugnassat, King Niall must by law preside over the great fair at Tallten..." (XIII, 1, p. 291)

"Again the year swung towards equinox. Summer died..." (XIII, 3, p. 302)

"Forty days after solstice, the diminishing gloom of winter was made bright in Ys." (XIV, 2, p. 310)

"At Imbolc Niall Naegeslach gave out that after Beltene (sic) he would fare overseas." (XIV, 3, p. 315)

"Very early in the shipping season..." (XV, 2, p. 327)

"Summer lay heavy over the land." (XVI, 2, p. 351)

"Autumn cooled and hazed the air." (XVI, 3, p. 358)

"Midwinter rites and festival, together with the Council meeting, went past solstice." (XVI, 4, p. 362)

"Tommaltach maqq Donngalii returned to Ys with the springtime." (XVII, 1, p. 369)

Maybe this, not the doings of human beings, is the true story?

Time Passes II

Again, a period of time elapses. Seasons come and go. Gratillonius lives now permanently in Ys and we cannot be told everything that happens.

Chapter VI:

"Up from the South wandered spring..." (p. 116)

- and the opening paragraph of the Chapter describes the responses of nature and humanity to spring across Armorica.

Chapter VII, section 1:

"At high summer, the rain sometimes fell nearly warm..." (p. 132)

That is a scene in Ys.

Chapter VII, section 4:

"As closely as it followed winter solstice, the Birthday of Mithras gave a glimmer of daylight, barely more than six hours, in a cavern of night." (p. 153)

- appropriate, since Mithras should be worshiped in a cave.

Chapter VIII, section 1:

"The equinoctial gales blew out of Ocean like longings, to wake the soul from winter drowse." (p. 159)

Chapter VIII, section 2:

"Early summer brought a spell of calm, light, warmth." (p. 168)

Chapter VIII, section 4:

"An autumn storm roared, whistled, flung rain and hail, throughout one night." (p. 181)

Chapter IX, section 1:

"Winter's early night had fallen..." (p. 198)

Chapter IX, section 4:

"That year huge rainstorms arrived in succession..." (p. 214)

- affecting harvests throughout Armorica.

Chapter X, section 1, paragraph 2:

"Rainstorms gave way to fog. As summer waned..." (p. 222)

Chapter XI, section 4:

"Often around the autumnal equinox, storms..." (p. 253)

Chapter XII, section 2:

"The months wheeled onward, through winter and spring and again to summer." (p. 269)

Chapter XII, section 3:

"That had been a quiet year in Ys. Yet folk came to believe that mighty things were astir in the womb of time." (p. 273)

- there are cyclical seasonal changes but also a sense of great events approaching.

Chapter XIII, section 3:

"Again the year swung towards equinox. Summer died..." (p. 302)

Chapter XIV, section 1:

"As autumn yellowed leaves..." (p. 307)

Chapter XIV, section 2:

"Forty days after solstice, the diminishing gloom of winter was made bright in Ys." (p. 310)

- by yet another royal birth.

Chapter XV begins with Dahut, twelve, approaching physical maturity.

Chapter XV, section 2, begins:

"Very early in the shipping season..." (p. 327)

Chapter XVI, section 2:

"Summer lay heavy over the land." (p. 351)

Chapter XVI, section 4:

"Midwinter rites and festival...went past solstice." (p. 362)

I have jumped over human and political events to show how the novel moves through the years. I must now return to the beginning of Chapter VII and continue rereading until the end of the concluding Chapter XVII in order to reach the half way point of the tetralogy.

The Passage Of Time, Continued

Dahut.

"Weather turned bitingly cold and clear." (XV, 3, p. 333)

"Snow returned, this time on a wind from the sea that cast it nearly level through the streets of Ys and drowned vision in whiteness." (5, p. 342)

"During the day snowfall ceased and freezing weather moved in. When day broke cloudless it saw what was rare in an Armorican winter, earth glittery white and a leafage of icicles aflash over the Wood of the King. Silence was so deep that it seemed to crackle, with any real sound barely skimming above." (XVI, 1, p. 347)

"The cold spell ended. Snow began to melt." (4, p. 366)

"Rain mingled with sleet dashed down the streets of Ys. Wind clamoured, Ocean roared. This had become a stormy year." (XVII, 1, p. 368)

"Waxing close to full in a sky gone again clear, the moon brightened dusk..." (3, p. 375)

"Clouds raced on a wild wind... The full moon seemed to flee..." (4, p. 380)

"A gale from the west drove an onslaught of rain before it." (XVIII, 3, p. 392)

"Suddenly came a quiet spell among those storms ramping over Armorica at that winter's close." (4, p. 394)

"The night when Gratillonius and his men camped at Maedraeacum was the first clear one of their homeward journey." (6, p. 406)

"Foul weather returned, and worsened." (7, p. 410)

"Still the wind mounted. By dawn it was like none that chronicles remembered. And still it mounted." (XIX, 2, p. 422)

"By sunset the wind had indeed lessened." (3, p. 428)

"By late morning, calm had fallen and the tide was out." (XX, p. 465)

This is a drama in itself but we have skipped past major events in Ys, to say the least.

Sleet, Rain, Wind And Cold

Through sleet, rain, wind and cold, Everardus the Goth rides across flat acres between withered grass, leafless trees and burned houses.

"The north wind smelled of the swamps over which it had roared, of the seas beyond, and of winter striding down from the Pole." ""Star Of The Sea" IN Time Patrol, p. 601)

This opening paragraph, addressing four senses, ends with swamps, seas and winter! The sleet hisses, vision is lost, chill penetrates clothes and the wind smells.

For narrative purposes, Anderson need only have written that Everard of the Time Patrol rode to meet the Roman general, Petillius Cerialis. Imagine an Anderson text with all its descriptions of natural scenery edited out.

In the timeline guarded by the Patrol, Romans and barbarian rebels make peace. To reinforce this course of events, a Patrolman must negotiate between the general and the rebels. Patrol histories, files, computers and experts persuade Everard that "...this is the proper configuration of a plenum that has powerful negative feedback. We've identified the random factor that could bring on an avalanching change; what we must do is damp it." (pp. 607-608)

Cerialis would not be flattered to know Everad's thoughts on the Romans:

"I'll never be fond of the Romans, but they do bring other things with them than slave traders, tax farmers, and sadistic games. Peace, prosperity, a widened world - those don't last but when the tide ebbs it leaves behind, scattered through the wreckage, books, technologies, faiths, ideas, memories of what once was, stuff for later generations to salvage and treasure and build with again. And among the memories is that there was, for a while, a life not given over entirely to naked survival." (p. 604)

How much of European history is attempts to rebuild the Roman Empire?

The Wind On Haven

"The Deserter."

Colin Raveloe, the narrator, is on Haven, a colonized moon of the gas giant, Catseye, where a storm is visible:

"That storm could have swallowed all Haven, or any other world where men can walk. But here I felt only an evening breeze. It was cool, with smells of growth from the farmlands around Fort Kursk." (p. 55)

The storm on the gas giant represents the hostile, mostly uninhabitable, universe whereas the cool breeze smelling of growth represents the habitable enclaves on a few planetary surfaces.

When Raveloe converses with potential enemies, their statements have sinister implications. In one case:

"The implications of that slipped past me at the moment, like a night wind I barely felt." (p. 76)

Wind provides a tactile, but almost subliminal, metaphor.

Later:

"The breeze had sharpened to a wind. It whined and bit." (p. 88)

When the potential for conflict increases, the breeze responds by sharpening into a wind.

"Wind roared, yelled, dashed rain over the canopy till all I could see was lightning." (p. 93)

Raveloe evades hostile surveillance by flying through a squall.

The wind is our constant companion in Poul Anderson's works.

Wind And Dan

"Passing the Love of Women." 

Dan Coffin learns to love the Rustumite lowlands in "My Own, My Native Land" and that he cannot marry Mary Lochaber but must settle for the more compatible Eva Spain in "Passing the Love of Women."

This second realization is accompanied by appropriately dramatic weather:

"...a rising wind roared in treetops..." (p. 83)

There is thunder and lightning.

"Wind skirled, thunder cannonaded." (p. 84)

Rain smites Dan's face but he sees a new beginning in Eva's eyes. Each instalment carries the Rustumite History steadily forward and we are sorry that, after this one, there will be only two more.

Onward, Earthlings.

The Goddess Of Death

The Stars Are Also Fire, 26.

Lunarians Brandir, Kaino, Ilitu and Etana in the torchcraft Beynac explore the planetoid postulated by Edmond Beynac and discovered by Temerir. Kaino dies rescuing Ilitu.

The planetoid has:

86 % Lunar gravity, "...ample for Lunarian health and childbirth, liberating in its lightness." (p. 345);

abundant accessible minerals;

water, ammonia and organics;

proximity to other sources of such materials.

When Dagny Beynac suggests the name, "Proserpina," Etana asks:

"'The goddess of the dead - because you lost a son to her?'

"The sea noise roared and wailed." (p. 357)

 

Usually wind wails but sea sounds do the same job.

 

"Dagny sat straight as she said, 'And because every springtime Proserpina comes back to the living world.'" (p. 357)

 

Why is the sea heard on the Moon?

 

A screen shows:

 

Terrestrial winter;

gray sky;

crashing surf;

gray waves, bursting white;

water hissing on sand;

bleached driftwood;

cliffs;

wrack;

spindrift;

rain.

Other senses are also reproduced:

skirl;

rumble;

salt tang;

chill.

This is how Dagny feels but she looks forward to spring.

 

Now regular readers know the meaning of "Proserpina" which, later, the cybercosm tries to conceal.