Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation on 29 June 2013.
Although
Wodenites are prominent in the Technic Civilization History, we do not
see any action on the surface of the planet Woden. We are told that,
although its gravity is two and a half times that of Earth, Woden's sun
is so energetic that animals can grow to gigantic size.
Father
Francis Xavier Axor, the Wodenite who has converted to Jerusalem
Catholicism and has been ordained in the Galilean Order, gives us some
details. His haizark, still comparatively primitive, are nomads
in the Morning Land, across the Sea of Truth from the Glimmering Realm
where the Terrans are based. In the Ascetic Hills, erosion has revealed
Foredweller ruins. Such remains are eventually destroyed by
micrometeoroids on airless planets or by weather and geology in
atmospheres but, on Woden, they were fossilized by petrifying ash or
mud.
Axor gained a merit scholarship from the
University of the Galilean Order at Port Campbell in the Glimmering
Realm where Fr Jaspers suggested that Foredweller ruins might provide
evidence for the Universal Incarnation. Hence, Axor's search through
space, eventually arriving on Imhotep in the Patrician System. Later,
Dominic Flandry obtains funding for Axor's research. I would agree that
the Foredwellers should be researched whether or not for Axor's reason.
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