Pele II

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 16 Apr 2014.

Poul Anderson imagines yet another unexpected hazard in a strange planetary system. As a gas giant of ten Jovian masses falls toward its sun, Pele, planetary convulsions spew iron into the upper atmosphere where Pelean ultraviolet splits molecules into ionized atoms. Next, the chaotically interacting Pelean and planetary magnetic fields form vortices that pull ferromagnetic atoms into charged pellets which, accelerated to escape velocity, are thrown like shotgun fire into space where they riddle an exploratory kzinti spaceship.

Anderson understands three kinds of psychology:

human beings who know the kzinti are unwilling to attempt a rescue;
a human being of good will who does not know the enemy does attempt a rescue;
a kzin can only attempt to kill his monkey rescuers...

More On The Macromolecule

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 Apr 2014.

Anderson, Poul, "Iron" IN Niven, Larry, Ed. The Man-Kzin Wars (London, 1989), pp. 27-177.

We learn more about the organic matter covering Prima and also about the yellow matter covering the other airless bodies in the red dwarf system. Both kinds of matter are cleverly integrated into the plot of "Iron."

Cosmic radiation within galaxies and quantum mechanics between galaxies caused random changes in the supermolecule that had covered Prima. Chemical structures that assimilated fresh material more efficiently were naturally selected, including:

atom-grabbing and catalytic components;
ways of -
passing atoms between receptors;
extracting planetary material;
breaking down carbonates and silicates;
incorporating metallic atoms;
growing and combining through clathrate formation.

The thin surface-covering mantle, strongly bound to the underlying rock and activated by approaching light, ripples in waves that emanate from darker nodes while it knits a landed spaceship's landing jacks into its structure, then gradually eats the ship.

The supernova-produced yellow material, comprising faceted spherical molecules of linked carbon atoms, each molecule surrounding a single metal atom, acts in aggregate like a fluid and possibly played a basic role in the origin of planetary life. When Saxtorph falls into a hole filled with such matter, he can neither climb nor swim out and it blocks his radio but Laurinda, knowing that he is there, rescues him with a cable.

Thick plastic heat-sealed bags of yellow matter superglued to landing jacks enable a spaceship to land and stand safely on Prima for hours because:

"The devourer could not quickly incorporate atoms so strongly interlinked. As it did, more flowed in to fill the gaps." (p. 175)

Thus, the yellow problem solves the organic problem.

Jinx And The Old Red Dwarf

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 29 Mar 2014.

Anderson, Poul, "Iron" IN Niven, Larry, Ed., The Man-Kzin Wars (London, 1989), pp. 27-177.

Jinx is a massive, egg-shaped, humanly colonized satellite of a gas giant in the Sirian system. Carita Fenger, a Jinxian, is almost as wide as she is high and:

"Ancestry under Sirius has made her skin almost ebony..." (p. 51)

Black skin that comes not from Africa but from centuries on Jinx!

Very soon after the Beginning, a galaxy formed as soon as it was possible for this to happen. (I think that the cosmic voyagers of Anderson's The Avatar visited a very early galaxy.) The stars of this galaxy lost mass in their red giant phases. This mass, containing oxygen, nitrogen, silicon, neon, magnesium and iron but few or no heavier elements, enriched a cloud from which the red dwarf formed. This dwarf and its five surviving planets have abundant hydrogen and helium because they condensed so soon after the Big Bang.

Displaced probably by an encounter with a larger body, the system has been moving between and through galaxies for fifteen billion years. Carita says:

"'A relic - hell, finding God's fingerprints...'" (p. 69)

Most science fiction readers know only that there are stars and planets with nuclear fusion inside stars transforming lighter into heavier elements which, blasted into space by novae, enrich later generations of stars and planets. Anderson gives us a lot more detail, shows us why it is important and imagines dramatic and unusual events within stellar processes.

Iron 1-8

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 29 Mar 2014.

I have reread the first eight of the twenty four numbered sections of "Iron" by Poul Anderson.

Markham, the unsympathetic character with an ambiguous attitude to the kzinti, is reminiscent of Magnusson who turns out to be pro-Merseian.

The characters investigate a remote, mysterious red dwarf that is reminiscent of unusual stars in other works by Anderson. This metal-impoverished dwarf star with scarcely any iron has an estimated age of fifteen billion years, making it almost as old as the universe. It moves quickly through our galaxy, having been ejected from its parent galaxy very early, probably by an encounter with larger bodies.

Unexpectedly, it has planets, which, even from a distance, are seen to be odd and unlike each other. We probably wonder whether they are inhabited but they can't be, can they? However, something else completely unexpected will emerge.

Thus, although the human characters hail from every planet in Known Space and have recently fought the kzinti, we recognize that we are in a Poul Anderson universe and that, like his contribution to Asimov's Robots, this story is very much part of Anderson's complete works.

Fifteen Billion Years

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 29 Mar 2014.

Anderson, Poul, "Iron" IN Niven, Larry, Ed., The Man-Kzin Wars (London, 1989), pp.27-177.

(This time, I really will try to regard 160 as a good round number of posts for a month and hold off on any more posts until 1st April.)

"Iron" is the kind of speculative fiction that I have come to expect from Poul Anderson - speculation totally transcending the Man-Kzin Wars setting of this particular story.

A red dwarf star and its five planets numbered by their human discoverers from Prima to Quinta have moved between and through gaseous nebulae for fifteen billion years. That has been long enough for the gravitational fields of the planets and their moons to attract atoms and molecules from the nebulae and even from intergalactic space. This matter affects the surfaces of those planets or moons that have no atmosphere to counteract it. Thus, a carbon compound from space yellows the airless surfaces of the Secundan and Tertian moons.

That carbon compound is too cold to interact with complex organic compounds which therefore are a minor part of the downdrift. Because the sun emits negligible ultraviolet and solar wind, carbon-based molecules reach the airless Priman surface intact and, because Prima is only 0.4 AU from the sun, its surface is warm enough for the organics to interact. Sand, dust and meteor powder provide colloidal surfaces where the organics cluster and concentrate until complicated exchanges occur, seizing free carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms from the downdrift and possibly also adapting to extract matter from surface rocks. Growing patches meet and interact to form a single multiplex molecule or polymer covering the planet with differently colored areas displaying diverse local interactions. Other planetary systems are not old enough and have not passed through enough nebulae for these processes to have occurred in them.

On the atmosphere-bearing Tertia, organics from space evolved into intelligent beings who, lacking metals, became extinct in their stone age when their planet chilled, plants died and rocks bound the atmospheric oxygen. The planetary polymer is a more ingenious extrapolation than the extinct intelligences and the dramatic history of this wandering planetary system makes the Man-Kzin Wars seem very parochial.