Starfarers (73 page)
Authors: Poul Anderson
Neri slumped down on a bench. The silence came back.
Until Ilmaray said: “I think you have the answer. We can’t stay here. Return immediately, and we’ll get under weigh.”
Regor nodded and touched the controls. The engine hummed into life. Jong got up, walked to a port, and watched the sea, molten silver beneath him, dwindle as the sky hardened and the stars trod forth.
I wonder what that sound was,
he thought vaguely.
A wind noise, no doubt, as Mons said. But I’ll never be sure.
For a moment it seemed to him that he heard it again, in the thrum of energy and metal, in the beat of his own blood, the horn of a hunter pursuing a quarry that wept as it ran.
For information
, advice, and much else, I owe thanks to Karen Anderson (as always), Víctor Fernández-Dávila, editor Robert Gleason, the late Kenneth Gray, G. Dayid Nordley, and Aharon Sheer. Special thanks are due Robert L. Forward and Sidney Coleman. The idea of a nuclear “time machine” is the former’s. An idea of the latter’s suggested the concept behind the zero-zero drive to me; he kindly sent me a copy of his paper, but it turns out that my speculation is quite unlike his real-science thought and may even contradict it.
The lines of verse quoted in Chapter III are from
The Book of Songs
, translated by Arthur Waley, copyright © 1937, renewed 1965 by Arthur Waley, by permission of the publisher, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
The lines of verse by Jorge Luis Borges and their English translation by Richard Howett and César Rennart quoted in Chapter IX are from
Selected Poems 1923–1967
by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, copyright © 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 by Emecé Editores, S.A., and Norman Thomas di Giovanni, by permission of the publisher, Bantam Doubleday Dell.
The lines of verse by Rudyard Kipling quoted in Chapter XVII are in the public domain.
Chapter XXI first appeared in a different form as “Ghetto” in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, May 1954, copyright © by Fantasy House, Inc., renewed 1982 by Poul Anderson. The lines from the ballad “Jerry Clawson” quoted in it are copyright by the author, Gordon R. Dickson, and used by his permission.
Chapter XVII first appeared in a slightly different form as “The Tale of the Cat” in
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
, February 1998, copyright © 1998 by Poul Anderson.
No person here named is in any way responsible for any mistakes or other flaws in this book.
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Trigonier Trust
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
978-1-5040-2468-6
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