Rise of the Terran Empire

by Poul Anderson

  "Not half as glad as I am that you're not a statesman," he said, emphasizing the last syllable. "Come, let's drop these dismal important matters. Let's discuss—for example, your tour of Avalon. I'm sure it can be arranged, a few months hence."

  She turned her face from him. When the muteness had lasted a minute, he stopped, as did she. "What's the matter?" he asked, frightened.

  "I'm leaving, Ekrem," she said. "Soon. Permanently."

  "What?" He restrained himself from seizing her.

  "Father. He sent in his resignation today."

  "I know he . . . has been plagued by malicious accusations. You recall I wrote to Admiralty Center."

  "Yes. That was nice of you." She met his eyes again.

  "No more than my duty, Luisa." The fear would not leave him, but he was pleased to note that he spoke firmly and maintained his second-best smile. "The Empire needs good men. No one could have predicted the Scorpeluna disaster, nor done more after the thing happened than Juan Cajal did. Blaming him, calling for court-martial, is wizened spite, and I assure you nothing will come of it."

  "But he blames himself," she cried low.

  I have no answer to that, he thought.

  "We're going back to Nuevo México," she said.

  "I realize," he attempted, "these scenes may be unduly painful to him. Need you leave, however?"

  "Who else has he?"

  "Me. I, ah, will presumably get an eventual summons to Terra—"

  "I'm sorry, Ekrem." Her lashes dropped over the delicate cheekbones. "Terra would be no good either. I won't let him gnaw away his heart alone. At home, among his own kind, it will be better." She smiled, not quite steadily, and tossed her head. "Our kind. I admit a little homesickness myself. Come visit us sometime." She chose her words: "No doubt I'll be getting married. I think, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to name a boy for you."

  "Why, I would be honored beyond anything the Emperor could hang on this downward-slipping chest of mine," he said automatically. "Shall we go inside? The hour's a trifle early for drinks, perhaps; on the other hand, this is a special occasion."

  Ah, well, he thought above the pain, the daydream was a pleasant guest, but now I am freed from the obligations of a host. I can relax and enjoy the games of governor, knight, elevated noble, Lord Advisor, retired statesman dictating interminable and mendacious memoirs.

  Tomorrow I must investigate the local possibilities with respect to bouncy and obliging ladies. After all, we are only middle-aged once.

  Summer dwelt in Gray when word reached Avalon. There had been some tension—who could really trust the Empire?—and thus joy amid the human population exploded in festival.

  Bird, Christopher Holm and Tabitha Falkayn soon left the merriment. Announcements, ceremonies, feasts could wait; they had decided that the night of final peace would be their wedding night.

  Nonetheless they felt no need of haste. That was not the way of the choths. Rather, two sought to become one with their world, their destiny, and their dead—whether in waiting for lovetime or in love itself—until all trouble had been mastered and they could freely become one with each other.

  Beyond the northern headland, the hills were as yet uninhabited, though plants whose ancestral seeds arrived with the pioneers had here long ceased to be foreign. Chris and Tabby landed in a sunset whose red and gold ran berserk above a quiet sea. They pitched camp, ate, drank a small glass of wine and a long kiss; afterward, hand in hand, they walked a trail which followed the ridge.

  On their left, as daylight smoldered away, grasses wherein clustered trefoil and sword-of-sorrow fell steeply down to the waters. These glimmered immense, out to a horizon which lost itself in a sky deepening from violet to crystalline black. The evening star stood as a candle among the awakening constellations. On their right was forest, darkling, still sweet from odors of pine. A warm small breeze made harp vines ring and brightness twinkle among the jewelleafs.

  "Eyath?" she asked once.

  "Homebound," he answered.

  That, and his tone and the passage of his mouth across her dimly seen hair, said: In showing me I must heal her, and how, you healed me, my darling.

  Her fingertips, touching his cheek, said: To my own gladness, which grew and grew.

  Nevertheless he sensed a question in her. He thought he knew what it was. It had often risen in him; but he, the reader, philosopher, poet, could inquire of the centuries better than she, whose gift was to understand the now.

  He did not press her to voice it. Enough for this hour, that she was here and his.

  Morgana rose, full, murky-spotted and less bright than formerly. So much had it been scarred. Tabby halted.

  "Was it worth it?" she said. He heard the lingering anguish.

  "The war, you mean?" he prompted.

  "Yes." Her free arm rose. "Look there. Look everywhere—around this globe, out to those suns—death, maiming, agony, mourning, ruin—losses like that yonder, things we've cheated our children of—to make a political point!"

  "I've wondered too," he confessed. "Remember, though, we did keep something for the children that they'd otherwise have lost. We kept their right to be themselves."

  "You mean to be what we are. Suppose we'd been defeated. We nearly were. The next generation would have grown up as reasonably contented Imperial subjects. Wouldn't they have? So had we the right in the first place to do what we did?"

  "I've decided yes," he said. "Not that any simple principle exists, and not that I couldn't be wrong. But it seems to me—well, that which we are, our society or culture or what you want to name it, has a life and a right of its own."

  He drew breath. "Best beloved," he said, "if communities didn't resist encroachments, they'd soon be swallowed by the biggest and greediest. Wouldn't they? In the end, dead sameness. No challenges, no inspirations from somebody else's way. What service is it to life if we let that happen?

  "And, you know, enmities needn't be eternal. I daresay, oh, for instance, Governor Saracoglu and Admiral Cajal had ancestors on opposite sides at Lepanto." He saw that she didn't grasp his reference. No matter, she followed his drift. "The point is, both strove, both resisted, both survived to give something to the race, something special that none else could have given. Can't you believe that here on Avalon we've saved part of the future?"

  "Bloodstained," she said.

  "That wasn't needful," he agreed. "And yet, we sophonts being what we are, it was unavoidable. Maybe someday there'll be something better. Maybe, even, this thing of ours, winged and wingless together, will help. We have to keep trying, of course."

  "And we do have peace for a while," she whispered.

  "Can't we be happy in that?" he asked.

  Then she smiled through moonlit tears and said, "Yes, Arinnian, Chris, dearest of all," and sought him.

  Eyath left Gray before dawn.

  At that hour, after the night's revel, she had the sky to herself. Rising, she captured a wind and rode it further aloft. It flowed, it sang. The last stars, the sinking moon turned sea and land into mystery; ahead, sharp across whiteness, lifted the mountains of home.

  It was cold, but that sent the blood storming within her.

  She thought: He who cared for me and he who got me share the same honor. Enough.

  Muscles danced, wings beat, alive to the outermost pinion. The planet spun toward morning. My brother, my sister have found their joy. Let me go seek my own.

  Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of light.

  High is heaven and holy.

  Afterword to The People of the Wind

  by Sandra Miesel

  "Where do science fiction writers get their ideas?" There are as many answers as writers: studying beach sand for Frank Herbert's Dune (1965), picturing a satyr with an umbrella for C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, hearing a new astrophysical theory for Larry Niven's "Neutron Star." Anything can kindle a creative imagination, even an obscure historical fact like the past shape of a national boundary betwee
n France and Germany.

  Following the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the French border veered abruptly into German-held Alsace in order to encompass the city of Belfort. The frontier was drawn that way for a specific reason. During the war Belfort successfully withstood a terrible siege by the Germans. Commanded by a bold and energetic governor, it held out after the fall of Napoleon III, after the defeat of all France's armies, even after the proclamation of an armistice. Subsequent peace terms awarded Lorraine and the rest of Alsace to Germany, but Belfort stayed French and has remained so ever since despite three turnovers of Alsace-Lorraine in the past century. Nevertheless, Belfort's patriotic French citizens have always been predominantly German in language and culture.

  Learning Belfort's story during a visit there inspired Poul Anderson to write The People of the Wind, a Hugo Award nominee as Best Novel of 1973 and one of his most ambitious books. He recognized Belfort's history as a model for dramatizing a phenomenon that had long fascinated him: a society in which humans and non-humans truly blend. The People of the Wind is the prime expression of a theme Anderson explored throughout his 50-year career in science fiction: the creative impact of difference versus the deadliness of uniformity. In this story, as in so many others, he reminds us that sparks only fly between oppositely charged points. The People of the Wind replays the Franco-Prussian War on an interstellar scale as a backdrop for clashes between species, societies, cultures, and persons. Settlement of the war leads to significant—although imperfect—resolutions of all these conflicts.

  Anderson's version of Belfort is Avalon, a choice planet of the star Laura, jointly colonized by men and winged, carnivorous Ythrians 350 years before the novel opens. It is thriving as part of the Domain of Ythri. When the larger Terran Empire attacks the Domain, Avalon resists annexation so fiercely it is able to remain under Ythrian rule although the domain loses the war and forfeits other territories. (Read Alsace and Lorraine for Hru and Khrau.)

  The Ythrian War is only one incident in the millennia-long history of Technic Civilization. Anderson sketched out this galactic panorama for more than thirty years in well over 40 published works. Technic Civilization develops out of our contemporary Western culture. Men explore and colonize the stars, discovering Ythri and Avalon among myriads of other worlds on the first Grand Survey ("Wings of Victory," 1972). The Polesotechnic League arises to exploit the profits of interstellar trade (stories featuring Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, including "Lodestar," 1973, in which Ythrians appear). But it collapses into chaos through greed. Just before the Time of troubles, Falkayn marries van Rijn's granddaughter and later leads colonists to Avalon. ("Wingless on Avalon" and "Rescue on Avalon," both published in 1973, occur in the early years there.) The Terran Empire is founded to restore peace and brings reasonably just government to thousands of systems. The Empire is in its third century when it moves against the Domain in its first aggressive campaign against a civilized foe. Subsequently, it collides with the younger imperium of Merseia. (Dominic Flandry flourishes at the height of this conflict 200 years later.) The rivals wear each other out and the Long Night falls. An entirely new cycle of civilization begins afterwards ("Starfog," 1967).

  This future history is a singular achievement within the science fiction field not only for its length and complexity, but also for its emphasis on historical rather than political, technical, or philosophical factors. In the series, the pendulum of time swings between expansion and retrenchment, anarchy and order, mobility and regimentation, enthusiasm and apathy, centralization and diffusion, conformity and differentiation.

  The author's command of events in the real past equipped him to make ingenious extrapolations and adaptations of it for his fictional futures. For example, the Polesotechnic League has elements of the Hanseatic League; Terra and Merseia resemble in part the Eastern Roman and Persian Empires; the false Messiah in The Day of Their Return (1973) is akin to both Jesus Christ and Sabbatai Zvi.

  Anderson studs this series liberally with ironies and cross-references. The plant that causes personal tragedy in "The Problem of Pain" (1973) helps save Avalon in The People of the Wind. The Merseians exist to menace Terra because Falkayn and his team helped them survive a nearby supernova ("Day of Burning," 1967). In The People of the Wind, that exploding star gives its name to the supernova-class flagship of the invading Terran armada whose commander may be descended from one of Falkayn's coworkers. The People of the Wind plays temporal la ronde: Tabitha Falkayn and Eve Davisson, a descendant of van Rijn's companion in "Territory," share the favors of Philippe Rochefort, ancestor of Flandry who is to be the nemesis of Merseia. About two centuries later, in Flandry's day, a dangerous Merseian plot against Terra is foiled by an Ythrian from Avalon. This would have been impossible had Avalon been conquered earlier. Carrying data, issues, characters, and proper names from story to story helps weave the fictional web tighter and probably amused the author as well.

  This future history is a fine instrument for charting the growth potential of human nature. Space travel in itself opens paths to new ways of knowing, doing, and feeling that stimulate wonder ("Wings of Victory"). It brings humans into exciting contact with other kinds of beings (the League stories) and allows for the formation of experimental societies (Aeneas in The Day of Their Return, a global mosaic of unusual local cultures) or preservation of ancient cultures doomed on Terra (various Empire stories). Although some of the variants may become lethal (The Night Face, 1963, 1978), unique groups sharing with each other is the future's best hope. It is a trend that will outlive dynasties and empires.

  The effects of extraterrestrial living should be spectacular enough but Anderson has multiplied possibilities by placing two intelligent races on the same planet. These can be unaware of each other (A Circus of Hells, 1970) or hostile (Ensign Flandry, 1966). Divergent human cultures can be incompatible ("Outpost of Empire," 1967) but humans can learn from alien superiors ("Outpost of Empire" again) or inferiors (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, 1975). Best of all is the fruitful cooperation between equal partners. This is the special glory of Avalon, home of winged and wingless alike.

  The People of the Wind traces the author's theme upon the bodies of living creatures, within their spirits, and across the surface of their world. Surely the Ythrians are the most splendid aliens Anderson created, finest in a long array of logically conceived, strikingly rendered beings. His earlier attempts at intelligent winged species (Diomedians in The Man Who Counts, 1958, 1978, and Staurni in The Star Fox, 1965) are overshadowed by the sheer magnificence of these windlords. Friend and foe alike testify to their sublimity. As Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said of the falcon, "beauty and valor and act, oh, air pride, plume, here buckle!"

  The visual poetry of Ythrians on the wing is believable only because the design of those wings is scientifically sound. Anderson employed his gift for making the marvelous rational and the rational marvelous to its fullest in this novel. His original impulse to put winged colonists on Avalon was stimulated by discussing the possibility of constructing a post-mammalian being with Analog editor John W. Campbell Jr. Campbell suggested a gill-like supercharger respiration system would be a great physiological improvement over lungs. Anderson seized upon this idea as the means to get the Ythrians airborne under earthlike conditions yet allow them to grow large enough to be intelligent. He designed the Ythrian body from its skeleton on out, solved the problem of its hands and feet (in different ways than for the Diomedians and Staurni cited above) and set about developing corollaries from biology.

  Ythrians are fundamentally territorial. They are highly individualistic carnivores who require large tracts of land to support themselves even when using domesticated food animals. (Both their Old and New Faiths reflect the characteristics of raptors.) Their sexuality is cyclic rather than continuous as in man. However, off-season ovulation can be triggered by grief (on Diomedes the special stimulus is hard exertion). Sharing parental responsibilities rather than frequent conjugal relations r
einforces pair bonding. Ythrians are more aggressive and less compassionate than humans, more loyal but less cooperative.

  These factors mold Ythrian society. Its basic unit is the "choth," a self-regulating group that voluntarily acknowledges a common identity, shares customs, beliefs, territory, and engages in some communal enterprises. It is somewhat like an ethnic culture or an extended family within a larger pluralistic society. Humans who find this system appealing can join choths if they are willing to observe choth law. Christopher Holm, the novel's young protagonist, is among the many human Avalonians "going bird" at the time of The People of the Wind. Other humans fear that their cultural values may be overwhelmed by Ythrian. At the same time, some Ythrians are upset about their brethren who withdraw from choths to "turn Walker."

  This problem of maintaining human uniqueness despite fellowship with Ythrians and allegiance to their Domain also has political ramifications. An Avalonian human complains: "'The fact won't go away that we're a not terribly significant minority in a whole clutch of minorities'" (p. 331). Terra mistakenly expects the human Avalonians to embrace the human-dominated Empire as soon as war is declared. She is sincerely puzzled by their decision to remain distinctive among aliens rather than be assimilated by kinsmen.