Assessing A Planetary Environment

 

The People Of The Wind, IX.

Rochefort has crash-landed on an island in an archipelago which, it will soon be confirmed, is Oronesia whose home guard includes the business partners, Tabitha Falkayn and Draun, both of Highsky Choth. Rochefort is already well-informed concerning the core, rotation, magnetic field, atmosphere, vegetation etc of Avalon but is also able to sense and deduce some further details.

Lower gravity causes exuberance. Although the Avalonian diameter is only 11,308 kilometers, the horizon does not seem closer than the Terrestrial or Esperancian. The sky is bluer, the sun sinks twice as fast and Morgana looks larger than Luna. It is smaller but closer and causes twice the tides. He thinks that the dense ground-cover helps to explain why the hexapodal animals have remained reptiloid and are no match for mammalians or avians.

Diverse Avalonian Territories

 

The People Of The Wind, I.

Stormgate country:

"Above valleys steep-walled, dark and fragrant with woods, snowpeaks lifted. Closer was a mountainside down which a waterfall stood pillarlike under the moon. A night-flying bugler sounded its haunting note through stillness." (p. 447)

(Three senses.)

Elsewhere:

the Plains of Long Reach;

arctic marshes;

scorching New Gaiilan savannahs;

the Sagiittarius basin;

uncounted islands.

 

An Ythrian female who marries out of her choth has to adjust to different laws, customs, culture and geography. However, winged Ythrians naturally travel farther and more frequently than human beings. Eyath's mother, Blawsa, often revisits her native Sagittarius - the basin, not the constellation. Eyath plans to marry Vodan who is also of Stormgate. However, war will intervene.

The Rogue Planet, Satan, Recedes From Beta Crucis

 

The Rebel Worlds, X.

As the rogue recedes on its hyperbolic orbit:

raw mountains

gashed valleys

naked stone plains

chill, stagnant seas

night

rare lamps

blue fluorescence

dreary wind-skirl

rushing sterile waters

inanimate, unaware, toiling machines

a dragon's hoard of synthesized isotopes

sufficient reason to garrison and colonize Sector Alpha Crucis

where High Admiral Hugh McCormac waits while battle is joined

Heidhin's House

(Heidhin is Veleda's foremost man but, since he is entirely fictional, we stay with images of Veleda.)

"Star of the Sea," 18.

The fire in a trench down the middle of the floor scarcely warms the house, its smoke hazes the air and its red light does not penetrate the darkness between pillars and beams yet, despite all this, Heidhin's house is "...as grand as many a royal hall"! (p. 616)

The historical Burhmund and the fictional Heidhin discuss a political intervention by Everard whom we but not they know to be a Time Patrolman. At this stage, we read pure historical fiction. However, before long, Veleda arrives mysteriously, having been borne on the timecycle/holy bull. The diverse genres blend seamlessly.

Veleda's tower and Heidhin's house deserve our attention as well-realized settings.

Veleda's Dwelling II

(I have just returned from an evening meal in the White Cross with two beautiful former work colleagues, Rachel and Caz.)

See Veleda's Dwelling.

Veleda, on her high stool, wraps her cloak around her, hood up, against the chill. Heidhin, visiting, sits on the floor with his back against the shut-bed. Veleda's breath is visible when she speaks.

On a later visit, they walk around her grounds between respectful field workers and the dark holy grove. She will withdraw into her tower to think, brew witchcraft and call the goddess while Heidhin carries her word to the tribes.

Later again, when the war goes badly, she walks alone, broods under a tree and returns from the halidom to her tower where she sits on the three-legged witch-seat, cloak tight, peering into the shifting shadows. Gloom makes objects look like trolls. The floor groans and light shines as the goddess arrives...

Veleda's Dwelling

(A statue of Veleda.)

"Star of the Sea."

Let us stretch the scope of the phrase, "Cosmic Environments." It is usual to contrast the cosmic with the mundane but, of course, this world (mundus) is part of the cosmos. In this sense, perhaps, everything is cosmic, especially when it is given some transcendent significance. An organism's environment is everything surrounding it, whether natural or artificial, thus including human dwellings.

Veleda dwells in a tower:

"...heavy-timbered, iron-bound, raised for her to dwell in alone with her dreams." (3, p. 497)

It is guarded by a man with a spear. Servants abide in the single chamber on the ground floor. Veleda dwells in the loft-room approached by a ladder. She sits on a high stool while a lamp casts wavering shadows among beams, chests, pelts, hides and instruments of witchcraft. Perhaps there is a cosmic connection?

Going out for the evening. To be continued...

Atlantean Tides

Virgin Planet, CHAPTER XVI, p. 115.

See:

Atlantean Astronomy
The Astronomy Of Virgin Planet
Religion, Astronomy And Society

Astronomy affects tides:

Atlantean tides vary but are "...always enormous..." (p. 115);
up to seven times Terrestrial;
a bore is like a tsunami;
shores are either cliffs or salt marshes fading into ocean;
estuaries are swamps, shifting between flooded and merely drenched;
seabirds seek stranded fish;
the damp wind smells of decaying kelp;
trees grow above high tide;
grass is amphibious;
there are feathered, flippered seal-equivalents;
a few women -

live in huts on high ground;
hunt and fish in pirogues;
catch rainwater;
are weaker families living where no one else wants;
have a neolithic culture;
earn trade goods as guides.