The Avatar VI: the jumps, 1-4

1st Jump

The spaceship Chinook has jumped at random through a T machine field and is in an unknown planetary system. The bearings of other galaxies show this system to be about 500 light years from Sol towards Hercules. This makes Deneb and the Orion Nebula identifiable.

The new sun is a red dwarf with five planets, none like Earth. The Chinook crew detect artificial radio signals from a gas giant which they name Danu. The ship's boat investigates and finds inhabitants like flying whales with whom they exchange music. The Danaans have instruments of metal which could not have been mined on a planet whose surface is hot liquid hydrogen so must have been donated by the Others who constructed the T machines.

2nd

10 to 20 billion years ago. Dark empty space with no stellar background. Gas clouds collapsing into galaxies. One supergiant star, 50,000 times as luminous as Sol, has been big enough to form this early but with just a single companion, not as part of a cluster.

The Others must have originated even earlier when an unusual concentration of elements in a nebula generated a star with life-bearing planets.

3rd

Bearings of other galaxies and shape of home galaxy indicate thousands of light years from Earth, same era. Chinook has emerged near a star temporarily green because leaving the main sequence and shortly to expand into a red giant, about ten billion years old but containing enough heavy elements to indicate that it might have formed near a supernova.

The crew detect repetitive radio signals from an old, dying planet they name Pandora. A force field protects uninhabited buildings with an empty spacecraft base and the radio transmitter. A landing party find ruins and three-eyed animals but is attacked by savages and leaves. Theory: the old race has left but sometimes returns to guide the savages who have evolved during the planet's decline.

4th

Millions of years futureward, in the same spiral arm, thousands of light years closer to galactic centre. A "...whirling sword of light..." is a pulsar/neutron star with a quasi-solid quaking surface under a six millimeter atmosphere. (1) A curved shell around the T machine shields emerging spacecraft from the destructive pulsar ray. Near the T machine is a station for visitors of different species. Chinook's holothete, Joelle, a human being linked to a computer, communicates in binary code with the station which informs her that, on the pulsar's surface, interactions between raw nuclei generate self-replicating, thus living, structures lasting for mere seconds but so energetic that they experience the equivalent of more than a century so that to them human beings would be as inert as stones.

The station guides the holothete to contact with the Oracle, a self-aware Others' artifact on the pulsar, which:

is as intelligent as a human being in holothesis;
counsels pulsar life ("...the star dwellers..." (2)) to whom it is a gigantic shrine;
records and plays back pulsar history;
mediates between pulsar life and visitors to the station;
possibly modulates strong nuclear forces to communicate quasi-telepathically with the star dwellers;
communicates, possibly by quark beams, with the station which relays by radio etc;
slows or speeds communications as appropriate for receivers.

The star dwellers:

had no idea of a sky in the pulsar's radiation haze;
exploring through a billion generations, found the Fire Fountains;
to explore the Fountains, climbed thirteen millimeter high mountains, which last as long as a terrestrial year, through many generations and civilizations;
reaching the top of the atmosphere, tunneled up through a mountain;
a million lifetimes later, saw the stars through a transparent dome.

With knowledge from the Oracle, Joelle plans a route between T machines to take Chinook to the frontier where the Others still construct new T machines.

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Avatar, London, 1985, p. 319.
(2) ibid., p. 330.    

At The Pulsar

Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XXXVII. Chinook's fourth jump via T machine is to a pulsar. I comprehensively summarized the concentrated information here. What might we add? Quite a lot.

Joelle the holothete directly senses:

forces;
energies;
free atoms;
free ions;
sub-nuclear particles;
the pulse - a narrow, sweeping, radiant beam.

She makes and corrects mistakes like someone subjected to optical illusions. The pulsar/neutron star had been a supernova in the dinosaur age. Now it is two thirds the mass of Sol but with a diameter of twenty kilometers. It contains a few atoms but is mostly elementary particles compressed as far as quantum mechanics allows. The particles interchange natures. The spin generates an enormous magnetic field that casts out two spirals of stellar material at near light speed. This matter emits thin beams of mostly invisible synchrotron radiation, hence the pulse. Both the star itself and infalling gas generate lethal radiation but a curved shell as dense as the T machine shields both the machine and arriving spacecraft.

A Star Trek film poster said, "The adventure continues..." What I say is that the adventure is only beginning.

At The Pulsar II

Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XXXVII.

After their fourth jump, the Chinook crew sees:

"...a whirling sword of light..." (p. 319), i.e., the pulsar;

a T machine with two satellites, i.e., the shield and a space station;

a stellar background;

no sun.

Both satellites have a motor to counteract perturbation. The station also has a dock for spaceships. Chinook's boat, Williwaw, lands and its crew explores "...on foot and by personal rocket." (p. 324) Joelle the holothete follows events from Chinook. There is an entrance to a tunnel with branching passages. Walls shine in wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared. There are many unopenable doors. Transparent doors or force fields show antechambers to diverse environments. At the center of the station is a kilometer-wide sphere containing displays addressed to species with different sensory organs and world-views. In the most comprehensible display:

atoms, the periodic table and changing quantum states are represented;
the hydrogen-1 nucleus is a unit of mass;
its emission line is a unit of length;
its frequency is an inverse unit of time;
the entire temperature scale from absolute zero to deuterium-forming fusion is divided into twelve to the power of twelve degrees;
when instructions are followed to activate a particular device, Joelle receives and responds to binary digits and recognizable patterns;
the automatic transmitter adapts to her equipment and nervous system;
she learns that there is intelligent life on the pulsar.

Pulsar And Son Of Man

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTERs EIGHTEEN-NINETEEN.

Flandry in his Comet-class scoutboat uses a storm, then a pulsar, to evade Merseian pursuit. Like Larry Niven's Beowulf Shaeffer in "Neutron Star" (Known Space future history), he swings around a pulsar.

Flandry:

"'Gray waves. Somebody under primary acceleration.'" (p. 352)

That should be "Grav waves." This is about the third occurrence of this miss-print.

Djana:

"Son of Man, help us." (p. 353)

Another Biblical quote, of course. We can be so used to Biblical phrases that we don't question them but why "Son of Man" instead of "Son of God"? A "son of man" is just a man but "one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven," the complete phrase, is not a man. He is a supernatural humanoid being. 

Djana continues to pray:

"'God have mercy,' she cried with her whole being. 'Oh, send them back where they belong!'" (ibid.)

Her psychic power, carefully nurtured by her enemy, Ydwyr, works. The pursuit recedes.

Quantum Life

Starfarers, 38.

In Poul Anderson's The Avatar, there is intelligent life on a pulsar. In his Starfarers, there is also a pulsar. However, in this novel, interstellar explorers receive messages from intelligent life composed not of mass, molecules, atoms or nuclei but of quantum states among the virtual particles in the vacuum of the changeable space-time near a black hole. Life is information. Quantum states can carry information as well as or better than masses. And I am going out. Back here later.

Stars And Storms

Around Stars 

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history series,  Beowulf Shaeffer orbits close to a neutron star.

 

In the Polesotechnic League period of Poul Anderson's Technic History, Nicholas van Rijn orbits close to the dead sun of Mirkheim.

 

In the Terran Empire period of the Technic History, Dominic Flandry orbits close to a pulsar.

 

(A pulsar is a neutron star.)

 

Through Storms

In the Polesotechnic League period, David Falkayn destroys pursuing Shenn warships by making them follow him through a storm on the planet Satan.

 

In the Terran Empire period, Flandry evades Merseian spacecraft by flying through a storm on Talwin and Uroch the Lucky evades Gorrazani craft by flying through a storm on Gorrazan/Gorzun.

 

In Anderson's Maurai future history series, Stormriders fly through a storm, then fire lasers to dissipate it.

(We need more of what the Stormriders do.)

Accidents

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Merseian astronomers observed an old and unusual pulsar;

Merseian physicists traveled through space to observe the pulsar more closely;

returning home, they noticed the unique planetary orbits around the star, Siekh;

investigating the Siekh system, they discovered the extraordinary inhabitants of the planet, Talwin;

Ydwyr insisted that the Talwinians should be studied;

a research station on Talwin was agreed only if it could also be an advance intelligence base;

therefore, and only because of this series of accidents, there is an intelligence base on Talwin and, finally, it captures Dominic Flandry.

Scientific exploration has to co-exist with inter-imperial conflict.

Pulsar, Bible And Milky Way

Starfarers, 28.

At the center of a neutron star, the neutrons might fuse into hyperons.

The star may have an atmosphere of incandescent gaseous iron a few centimeters deep.

It spins hundreds of times per second.

Its magnetic field accelerates interstellar matter outward at near light speed.

Its radio pulse is detectable across the galaxy.

"Out of the whirlwind, God speaks to Job." (p. 260)

Another Biblical reference. And, indeed, ultimate forces are manifest in the pulsar.

Beyond it is "...the cold cataract of the Milky Way..." (p. 261)

(And see "...an infinitely cold cataract..." here.)

Wind And A Pulsar

There are several more Biblical references in Fury. You just have to keep reading.

Meanwhile, back in Starfarers, 26:

"Mokena gathered her words as she walked. The wind shrilled." (p. 245)

Shrilling wind indicates that there will be difficulties in what is to be said. If four crew members travel in Envoy to explore a nearby pulsar, then the other six will be left on Tahir and will be stranded there if Envoy fails to return. And why do most Tahirians seem to dread a return to starfaring? The artificial human-Tahitian language needs another year to become fully useable. Predictably, the human explorers remain surrounded by more that is unknown than known. What is certain is that a spaceship crew that traverses five thousand light years will discover at its destination phenomena that are not observable from the Solar System. So a fictional account that did not introduce anything new would be both wrong and inauthentic. We must rely on the author's creative imagination - scientifically informed, of course.

Interventions By The Others

The Avatar. 

The Others do more than provide interstellar transport machines for species that achieve interplanetary capability.

They also:

directed humanity to the Phoebean System;

gave the Danaans metal tools to use on their gas giant planet;

gave the pulsar dwellers the Oracle;

constructed observation stations for other races at the pulsar and at a black hole.

Also, the Oracle, a self-conscious and hyper-intelligent artifact, gives Chinook data that will enable the holothete to plot a probable path to the Others' frontier. Something like this was necessary. Random rotations around T machines would not have returned Chinook to the Solar System where a major problem awaited resolution. 

Another novel could describe a ship travelling indefinitely through space-time via T machines. Such a ship would require a self-sustaining internal environment and also some mechanism to ensure that each T machine led to another T machine, not just to empty space. With these requirements in place, the sky would be the limit. Or rather would not be. The Others travel between universes.

POVs And A Pulsar

"Elsewhere aboard, folk slept..."
-Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XXXV, p. 313.

Sometimes, the omniscient narrator directly informs the reader about natural or cosmic events. In those cases, we apprehend the events, as far as possible, without any awareness of a narrator - who is like a fully transparent window. Here, instead, he tells us about a number of people and it is evident that the narration does not come from the point of view (pov) of any one of those people:

Frieda and Dozsa sleep together;
Brodersen and Weisenberg sleep peacefully by themselves;
Joelle sleeps heavily, under sedation;
Rueda rolls about;
Susanne sleeps with a smile that comes and goes.

Who knows all this?

Caitlin is a busy woman, keeping three men happy, one after the other. This is narrated from her pov.

XXXVI is narrated by an avatar on Earth. In XXXVII, Brodersen's pov, Chinook arrives at a pulsar - and I will now emulate the Chinook crew by going peacefully to sleep.

JOB In FURY And STARFARERS

On the same day, we read:

"His bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down in the dust. Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth...-JOB."

-Fury, PART I, p. 83.

"O might and mystery! Out of the whirlwind, God speaks to Job!"

-Starfarers, 28, p. 260.

The might, mystery and whirlwind are encountered at a pulsar of which more later. 

At its core, neurons fuse into hyperons... Incandescent gaseous iron atmosphere only a few centimeters high. Hundreds of spins per second. Magnetic field capturing interstellar matter and accelerating it out at near light speed. Radio beacon detectable across the galaxy. The whirlwind. God speaks...? At least the forces that form this universe do.

A Path Through The Star Gates

After conversing with the Others' Oracle on the pulsar, Joelle the holothete:

makes probabilistic computations of the magnitude and direction of particular paths through the star gates;

also makes reasonable estimates of the likelihood that another T machine will be at the end of a gate;

devises a scheme for traveling from machine to machine, always jumping as far as possible in a plausible direction, thus eventually reaching the frontier where the Others are still building T machines.

The remaining seven jumps are to:

a still coalescing planetary system;

an old globular cluster with one planet humanly habitable only on plateaus, like Larry Niven's Plateau or Anderson's Rustum in the first generation of its colonization;

the galactic core;

near the galactic center in the far future;

intergalactic space a billion years in the future;

in the galaxy, 70 to 100 billion years in the future;

the Others.

The Pulsar

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

"'One millionth Solar luminosity...shining from a body ten kilometers in diameter...'" (p. 260), therefore 19,000 times as intense in the visible spectrum, more in others;

the remnant of a supernova;

a mass of nearly one and a half Sols;

so small and dense that it is no longer atoms but only neutrons, possibly with some of those subatomic particles fused into hyperons at the center;

an atmosphere only a few centimeters deep, possibly of incandescent gaseous iron;

hundreds of spins per second;

a magnetic field that accelerates interstellar matter outward at near light speed;

a radio beacon detectable across the galaxy;

God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind - in the imagination of some human visitors.

As in Tau Zero, Anderson moves effortlessly between cosmic physics and questions of human existence.

Dangerous Manoeuvres

Van Rijn escapes pursuit by orbiting close to a supernova remnant. See Rights, Wrongs And Risks.

Flandry escapes pursuit by orbiting close to a pulsar. See Ingenious Deceptions.

Rouvaratz reaches escape velocity by orbiting close to the shadow matter star in "In The Shadow."

These are good stories but, after a while, when rereading one, we are reminded of  the others. I still have not reread as far as the discovery that one of the shadow planets is inhabited and communicative but that will wait till tomorrow.

Textual Diversity

Poul Anderson's works are nothing if not diverse. In recent posts about just one novel, A Circus Of Hells:

the offworld wealth of Vach Urdiolch and the xenological knowledge of the Roidhun's nephew;

the religious objects in Ydwyr's inner and outer rooms;

Djana's visions which recalled Hrolf Kraki's Saga and thus, indirectly, the Volkerwanderung;

the Domrath seasonal cycle;

Merseian physicists investigating a pulsar;

a long chain of Merseian intelligence work on Irumclaw;

Djana's kinship with other fictional heroines.

And we have hardly mentioned the hero, Dominic Flandry.

Three Prophetic Writers

Starfarers, 47-48.

HG Wells' Time Traveler travels to 802,701 AD and beyond, then returns to the nineteenth century, whereas Envoy travels to an extra-solar civilization, a pulsar and a black hole, then returns to Earth. However, returning to Earth equals traveling to Earth eleven thousand years in the future. Thus, what the Time Traveler finds on his outward journey the Envoy crew find on their return journey: nature conquered by technology and a decadent society. The main difference is that, in The Time Machine, industrial workers have devolved into Morlocks whereas, in Starfarers, they have been replaced by robotics and nanotech. Anderson supersedes Wells in a powerful dialogue about future society.

CS Lewis's anti-Wellsian contribution, That Hideous Strength, argues that technological control of society would be literally diabolical.

Addressing Every Issue

We address every issue because we discuss Poul Anderson's works which address every issue. Cosmic! Anderson's The Avatar addresses the self-serving psychology of an unscrupulous politician, the awesome origins of multiple universes and a few things in between, like the sensory impressions of a salmon, a human-computer linkage and life on a pulsar.

Anderson's works are rich enough to yield new insights and enjoyments from careful rereading and are also illuminated by comparisons with the works of authors like HG Wells, Olaf Stapledon, CS Lewis, James Blish and SM Stirling, as I hope to have demonstrated in recent posts. Stirling imparts a sense of adventure from the exploration of alternative Earths, thus renewing the familiar idea of parallel universes.

In The Avatar, I have only just begun to reread Chapter XXVII of L so we will be here for a while. However, posts about passages in Anderson's texts can transport us to other works of fantasy and sf, backwards through history or outwards into astrophysics.  A recent question in the combox was whether the US and the UK were right to ally with the USSR during World War II. If those governments had decided otherwise, then history would have diverged. Do all our alternative choices and their consequences exist somewhere - including the really bad ones? We exist in one universe but Anderson and his colleagues can and do imagine many others.

Merseians

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTERs TWELVE-THIRTEEN.

A team of Merseian physicists returning from an expedition to an unusual pulsar near the border of the Terran Empire noticed the unique orbital configuration in the Siekh System and investigated that also. As a result, Ydwyr came to study the Talwinians and had to accept that the base on Talwin would also have an Intelligence aspect. He hopes that Flandry, an alien with an Intelligence agent's knowledge of xenology, will help his research.

Flandry and Djana mess with Merseian civilians who treat them cordially and with interest, naturally enough. I remember my mother looking at a photograph of Russians laughing in a street in Moscow. She commented, "They can't all be devils." Well, of course not. Differentiate between a people and their regime.

Cnif hu Vanden, who becomes friendliest with Flandry, is a colonial to whom Merseia is strange. We realize that there is more to the Merseians than the Roidhunate's conflict with Terra.

Why Ydwyr Wants Flandry

Merseian astronomers noticed an unusual, old and nearly extinct pulsar in no-man's-land near the Terran border. A team of physicists went to investigate. Taking routine observations on their return, they also investigated the unusual orbits around Siekh. When Ydwyr heard of the unusual Talwinians, he decided that they must be studied. This was agreed only on condition that Talwin also become an advanced base.

Ydwyr also wants to study human beings. Flandry is not only human but also an intelligence agent who should know some xenology and should therefore be able to help with the study of the Talwinians. He is also intriguing because Ydwyr, through his exalted family, has heard something of Flandry's role in the Starkad affair. Ydwyr, a scientist who investigates psychic phenomena, thinks that there might be a destiny in Flandry and he uses an obscure, probably archaic, term for "destiny." This reminds me of Manse Everard thinking that the time stream is bearing Veleda along.

Flandry, of course, will escape but what Ydwyr says suggests another story possibility about a human scientist who, captured and unable to escape, makes a fulfilling career out of working for a Merseian like Ydwyr.