London And Luna

In Flandry And Leamas, we compared Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry with John le Carre's Alec Leamas. Now we find a lesser parallel between Anderson's David Falkayn and Leamas.

Both London and Luna are in the cosmos although we do do not think of London as a "cosmic environment."

In London, to evade any followers, Leamas:

suddenly jumps on a bus to Ludgate Hill;
dismounts in a traffic jam;
catches a tube;
stands in the end carriage;
alights at the next station;
catches another train to Euston;
goes back to Charing Cross, where a van waits in the forecourt.

On Luna, to evade any followers, Falkayn:

passes through a large sporting goods store;
walks behind large items;
leaves by a rear door;
finds a kiosk;
enters the antigrav dropshaft;
gets off at the eighth sublevel;
proceeds along the corridors to his destination.

In one of his novels, Frederick Forsyth explains how a trained team can follow anyone without being spotted and not lose him. Anyone who turns a corner, runs to the next corner and looks back merely alerts the team that he thinks he might be followed.