Dukeston

A Stone In Heaven, VII.

Dukeston, a Hermetian General Enterprises commercial base on the planet Ramnu, extracts from a sulfur-rich marsh:

fine-grained hardwood;

 

oricin, an antiobiotic effective against the Hermtian disease, cuprodermy;

 

other biologicals -

- which are cheaper to ship than to synthesize.

Also making Dukeston economically viable are palladium (scroll down) and other minerals from the nearby Chromatic Hills.

The base was located five thousand kilometers from Wainwright Station so that its cultural influence would not affect the natives studied by the xenologists who now include Miriam Abrams.

For dramatic events in Dukeston, see the link from "palladium," above.

Plausibility

By contrast with the space operatic early instalments of the Captain Flandry series, A Stone In Heaven reads much more like something that might just possibly happen - accepting the premise of faster than light interstellar travel, of course. Whereas Duke Alfred of Tauria had abducted Princess Megan of Luna and hidden her in his harem, Grand Duke Edwin of Hermes merely fails to provide the Imperial legate with figures on the production and consumption of palladium, essential to protonic control systems, thus to military machinery. However, both Dukes plan rebellion and both are foiled by Flandry. Unfortunately, Edwin is the last Duke to be foiled by Flandry. In the following volume, the last of the Flandry period, Admiral Olaf Magnusson's rebellion is foiled by Flandry's daughter and her companions while Flandry himself awaits the outcome after being placed under arrest by none less than Magnusson. Again, it is plausible that Flandry should, for once, suffer such a reversal although it is far less plausible that this new team of Diana, Targovi and Axor would be able to carry out:

"'...a coup more dramatic and decisive than [Flandry] had dared fantasize.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE, p. 451.

Fortunately, the author is free to fantasize.

Again, in A Stone In Heaven, interstellar travel is made to sound as credible as trans-Atlantic travel:

"'...the Queen of Apollo arrives next week. She starts back to Hermes three days later, and first class accommodations are not filled.'" (III, p. 42)

We have become used to reading about small private space speedsters but a larger ship seems more plausible for such a long voyage.

A Stone In Heaven

In A Circus Of Hells and The Rebel Worlds, the young Dominic Flandry achieves his aims, both personal and political, by practicing elaborate deceptions. By contrast, his last novel as central character, A Stone In Heaven, is refreshingly simple and consequently more plausible.

The Duke of Hermes is suspected of planning a coup. Miriam/Banner's Ramnuan oath-sister, Yewwl, enters the commercial center, Dukeston, on a pretext and transmits what she sees: secret production of military equipment and uniforms and of more palladium than necessary for a civilian economy - maybe also military rations and fissionable isotopes. Yewwl does not leave Dukeston alive but Flandry, acting on what she has seen, attacks from space, destroying first a particular building in Dukeston, then the military base on the outer moon. That is enough. The Duke, already in space, seeking Flandry, flees and his movement collapses, crews either surrendering or disappearing. If only it were always that simple.

Flandry refers to his last expedition and we really do expect that he and Chives will die in space at the end. They dispatched Miriam to Terra in the Hooligan while they manually flew the warheads towards their final target but she returns to rescue them. Thus, Flandry reviews his life but happily it does not end yet. In fact, he and Miriam begin a partnership that continues in the next novel.

Interstellar Industry

Conditions on the rogue planet, Satan, during its bypass of Alpha Crucis, provide an industrial base for the transmutation of elements. Rhenium and scandium are urgently needed for certain alloys and semiconductors. Hafnium is necessary for polyergic units to make spaceship computers.

On the surface of Mirkheim, large quantities of supermetals can be directly mined.

Wayland, a massive moon of a super-Jovoid planet, is rich in easily mineable heavy metals: uranium, thorium, neptunium, plutonium, osmium, platinum etc.

"'...palladium is essential to protonic control systems, which are essential to any military machine.'"

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT III, p. 39.

 

My point here is that Poul Anderson shows us the industrial side of an interstellar economy which I think is lacking from most future histories, particularly Asimov's.   

"Terra"

The literary ghetto of pulp magazine sf developed its own cliches and terminology, e.g., the Latin" Terra" used as a name for Earth. However, contrast that use of the word, "Terra," with the sophisticated civilization of the Terran Empire in Poul Anderson's Technic History. In A Stone In Heaven, the Imperial legate on Hermes requests figures for Hermetian production and consumption of palladium, a metal that is essential to protonic control systems which in turn are essential to any military machinery, but his agents are unable to collect the relevant data. The Grand Duke of Hermes claims to suspect that there is a conspiracy to discredit him whereas in fact it is he that is engaged in secret weapons production.

Again, he vetoes any attempt to request Imperial assistance for the nearby Ramnuans, an intelligent species threatened by an Ice Age, even though such an Imperial effort would be bound to boost the declining Hermetian economy. The Duke has something to conceal on Ramnu.

Thus, we get a sense of a history, an industry and an economy that are as convincing as if Hermes and the other planets with which it interacts were real places. This is historical fiction with a future setting.

Yewwl's Intelligence Gathering

A Stone In Heaven, XII.

For once, in a novel about an Intelligence officer, the characters genuinely gather intelligence. Miriam/Banner reports to Flandry:

"'Yewwl found clues, oh, yes. Production of combat gear, uniforms, possible military rations, certainly more palladium [scroll down] than a civilian economy can account for, and maybe - this isn't sure - maybe a plant for fissionable isotopes. A fight broke out and I, I'm afraid she's been killed.'" (p. 164)

The rest of the narrative is straightforward:

Yewwl kills the Ramnuan who had killed her son and is killed while attacking Hermetians;

Flandry disarms Cairncross with two quick strikes at his secret weapons production and storage facilities;

Cairncross either flees or is killed by some of his own men;

Flandry and Banner return to Terra where they begin a new partnership -

- and the series is not quite finished even yet.