The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson

by Roger Elwood

  The creature Anderson terms the “nicor” is particularly interesting. Nicor, related to the modem “nix,” is the Anglo-Saxon word for “water sprite” and also for “hippopotamus.” Later the name seems to have become specific to one such being. His German equivalent, Nikard, stole newborn babes. In Yorkshire tradition he became the water sprite Nicobare, a halfwit who occasionally uttered profundities.10 Anderson’s nicors seem to have nothing to do with water; they look something like a cross between an elephant—or a hippopotamus?— and an Ent. But one of them, Nagrim, is involved in a kidnapping (Barbro’s), and he is simultaneously stupid and wise. For example, he says of the colonists,

  “I know deir aim. Cut down trees, stick plows in land, sow deir cursed seed in de clods and in deir shes. ‘Less we drive dem into de bitterwater, and soon, soon, dey’ll wax too strong for us.’’ (p.51)

  We have seen that the “rational explanation” for most of the “magical” power of the Queen is telepathy and related parapsychological phenomena. As is true in the Flandry stories (which, however, are in a different “future history”), telepathy in turn reduces to the generation and reception by the nervous system of extremely long-wave electromagnetic radiation. Information transfer by radiation of this wavelength is slow, which explains why humans have so little telepathic ability, but in the dark homeland of the aborigines, the ability has had evolutionary advantage, and it has reached a fairly high level of development.

  It is interesting to note that parapsychological researchers are themselves enmeshed in a debate as to whether the phenomena they study can be explained in terms of electromagnetic radiation. For a period of decades, it was generally accepted that they could not. The evidence in favor of cross-temporal phenomena, such as precognition, seemed as good as that for such phenomena as telepathy, which might be expected to more easily lend itself to an explanation in terms of current biological and physical theories. But more recently, researchers, especially Soviet, have again been examining ‘electromagnetic” theories, apparently with promising results. For ‘The Queen of Air and Darkness,” Anderson has chosen to follow this more “pedestrian” explanation (which he does not in, for example, “Kyrie”): in ‘The Queen of Air and Darkness,” the explanation should not only be rational; it should be as familiar to the reader as possible. Even in science fiction, emotional overtones are as important as logic.11

  §

  Although the aborigines make conscious use of archetypes on the grandest scale, so that the figure of the Queen of Air and Darkness must dominate the novelette, they are not the only ones to employ the technique. Sherrinford himself cultivates a resemblance to Sherlock Holmes, or rather to an archetypal Rational Detective:

  “It hasn’t been a conscious pose—much—it’s simply been an image which fitted my personality and professional style. But it draws an appropriate response from most people, whether or not they’ve ever heard of the original.” (p. 82)

  A person may also fall into archetypal patterns unconsciously, as Barbro does when she assumes a sort of “devoted widow” role very familiar in literature. One of the advantages of conscious knowledge of archetypes, however, is that one has more freedom to move in and out of types at will. Thus Sherrinford allows himself to fall in love with Barbro even though this is out of Holmesian character. Barbro is also able to change her self-conception, with Sherrinford’s help, but the novelette is half over before she has “realized, half guiltily, that life held more hopes than even the recovery of the son Tim gave her.” (p. 62) This is not, however, to suggest that knowledge guarantees a change for the better. Archetypes themselves are, as we shall see, symptomatic of deeper relationships, and as such are not easily or painlessly modified. At the end of the novelette it is Barbro who must draw Sherrinford out. Even the grand manipulators, the aborigines, seem to be prisoners of their own thought structures. If, instead of hiding themselves and obscuring all traces of their habitation, they had made themselves known to the first scouting expedition, humans never would have colonized Roland. Even afterward it would not seem terribly difficult to achieve some formal division of territory. The Darklands, plunged into night for over half the year, could never seem overwhelmingly attractive to humans. The aborigines, on the other hand, cannot endure the full light of day, and so have little incentive to move into what are now the lands of men. But somehow the aborigines cannot see this. Sherrinford notes,

  “It didn’t occur to them that they might be conceded the right to keep their lands. Perhaps they’re still more fiercely territorial than we. They determined to fight, in their own way.” (p. 80)12

  However, Anderson also shows that self-direction can be won even against high odds. Sherrinford’s allusion to the planet Rustum, already noted, is brought on by the fact that on that world, flying creatures large enough to carry a child are known to exist. A child-carrying bird does in fact play an important role in the Orbit Unlimited novelette ‘The Mills of the Gods,” which also shares with ‘The Queen of Air and Darkness” the plot thread of a search for a lost little boy. One of the main concerns of the earlier story is how, after a decade of struggle, the Calvinist Joshua Coffin learns to break the rigid mold of his belief system and comes to a more “human” relationship with himself and with his family. By the end of “The Queen of Air and Darkness” a similar breakthrough seems possible for aborigine-human relations.

  After all, the aboriginal methods of struggle have led to little bloodshed. A rational-technological society will be able to forgive the aborigines their subtler assault, recognizing that “‘they never did us any harm as atrocious as what weve inflicted on our fellow men in the past.’ ” (Sherrinford, p. 81) And while an accommodation between humans and aborigines will not be easy and may even prove impossible, the confrontation does present the two peoples with new opportunity. Not only can there be fruitful exchange between the aboriginal “biology technology” and the human “physics technology”: more fundamentally, the alien perspective, with its own archetypes or other patterns of thought, should make possible a new understanding of the mind. “ 1 daresay/ ” says Sherrinford, “ ‘once we begin to get insight into that mentality, our psychological science will go through its Copernican revolution/ ” (p. 80)

  §

  The concept of archetypes will be part of this new “psychological science,” but it alone is clearly insufficient, as the failure of the aborigines’ scheme demonstrates. And beyond this, it is obvious that secondhand Jungian psychology is not all that is needed to resolve the central philosophical conflict of the novelette.

  Anderson shows a great deal of sympathy for, and appreciation of, the aboriginal way of life, but there is no doubt that on the margin his sympathies fall toward the “rational-technological” human culture. In one sense, he presents the conflict of societies as one between freedom and slavery.

  But this is “slavery” only in a very special sense. In the realm of the Queen of Air and Darkness, no one is compelled under pain of death to labor. There are no discontented slaves constantly looking for a means of escape, ready to make a break the moment the opportunity presents itself. Such relations between master and slave certainly do exist at times, and Anderson has dealt with them in other works.13 But there is another condition of “slavery” which is perhaps more common. As van Rijn says in “The Master Key,”

  “How many slaves have there been, in Earth’s long history, that their masters could trust? Quite some! … And how many people today is domestic animals at heart? Wanting somebody else should tell them what to do, take care of their needfuls, protect them not just against their fellow men but against themselves?”

  In order to draw a distinction between unwilling and willing servitude, we might reserve the term “slavery” for the first meaning, and call the second “enthrallment.” A thrall is a slave, of course, but in modem English the former term has acquired a connotation of voluntary bondage.

  This distinction between “slavery” and “enthrallment” is drawn with par
ticular clarity in a theory of fundamental human relationships devised by Professor Manfred Halpern of the Politics Department of Princeton University. According to his theory, a coerced, unwilling master-slave relationship is an instance of what he terms “Subjection,” while what we have called the master-thrall relation would be an instance of “Emanation.” Halpern defines this latter as,

  an encounter in which (1) one treats the other solely as an extension of one’s own personality, one’s own will and power as an embodiment of one’s self. And (2) the other accepts his denial of his separate identity as legitimate because of the mysterious source or nature of the overwhelming power of the other.14

  Additionally, in return for his denial of self, the “thrall” receives a sense of limitless security, a feeling of being loved and comforted. “Emanation” is, in fact, characteristic of relations between parents and young children, and it is one of the very few social tools available to primitive societies, which fact accounts for, among other things, the deification of many rulers. It also at least partially explains the at-times puzzling acquiescence of a people to a rule which seems tyrannical to the outsider.

  In ‘The Queen of Air and Darkness,” it would seem that a relationship of Emanation exists between the Queen and at least her nonaboriginal subjects—both kidnapped humans and the bioengineered beings. These individuals clearly see the Queen as possessing “overwhelming power” of a “mysterious source or nature.” One of the aborigine-raised humans, Mistherd, reflects of the Queen, “Of course, you obeyed her, and in time you saw how wise she had been” (p. 52). Later, Sherrinford concludes that the Outlings are like folkloric fairies who are ‘“not truly gods but obedient to rulers who are enigmatic and powerful enough to be/ ” (p. 82) Furthermore, the Queen does reward her servants with a sense of belonging, of love and comfort. After Barbro is kidnapped, the aborigines try to win her over by giving her a foretaste of this emotion: “she was borne along in a knowledge of being loved. At peace, at peace, rest in the calm expectation of joy.” (p. 73) It is not clear whether this psychology can be extended to the aborigines themselves. There is no obvious reason why their social patterns should be the same as those of humans and creatures designed to impress humans. On the other hand, it is possible to construct one or several explanations for their actions in human terms. One possible difference is that the aboriginal culture seems to lack Anderson’s conception of freedom: the Queen seems unaware she is depriving the humans of anything.

  Both of the Queen’s aspects—awesome ruler and loving comforter—are reflected in the titles by which she is known among the humans and the bioengineered creatures: Star-mother, Snowmaker, Lady Sky, the Fairest, All Healer, Moonmother, Garland Bearer, Wonderful One, Mother, Queen, Sister of Lyrth (Lyrth being a constellation visible from Roland).

  But Anderson has dealt with simple personal “enthrallment” before: perhaps best in ‘The Master Key” and in the relationship between Djana and Ydwyr in A Circus of Hells. The treatment of the theme in “The Queen of Air and Darkness” is remarkable for the fact that here this personal “enthrallment” is almost explicitly identified with another sort of willing servitude: slavery to tradition, to that which maintains its awe of mystery simply because it is unexamined, slavery to the “collective unconscious.” ‘“We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?’ ” (Sherrinford, p. 81) Anderson has treated this second sort of “enthrallment” previously, perhaps best in “A Twelvemonth and a Day” (expanded version: Let the Spacemen Beware!), but the combination in “The Queen of Air and Darkness” is probably his best effort to show us that the two forms are essentially the same.15 One can surrender one’s rational will to beliefs or habits as easily as to individuals, for essentially the same reasons, and with essentially the same results. Ideas have a mystery and power of their own. They too can love and comfort. Barbro says,

  “… when I’m under them I can’t think of the stars as balls of gas, whose energies have been measured, whose planets have been walked on by prosaic feet. No, they’re small and cold and magical; our lives are bound to them; after we die, they whisper to us in our graves.” (p. 65)

  Later, during Barbro’s kidnapping, as she struggles with telepathic suggestion:

  Why should she believe ashen tales about … atoms and energies, nothing else to fill a gape of emptiness … tales she could not bring to mind … when Tim and the horse her father gave her carried her on to Jimmy? (p. 74)

  But this quotation does more than to suggest that one can be “enthralled” by ideas. It also raises an important question. Why should anyone prefer the insecure search for truth to the comfort of sure belief? What does freedom have to offer which could induce anyone to reject the Queen of Air and Darkness and her world-view, to reject a sure route to a happy life in the aura of mystery and majesty?

  §

  While any final answers must be provided by each individual, Anderson takes us several steps in the inquiry. First, he reminds us that, as seen by an outsider, there is little difference between “enthrallment” and “real slavery.” If the outsider is a contemporary Westerner, or if, like Sherrinford, he comes from a colony world founded expressly to preserve Western values, then in fact the “slave” awaiting the chance to resist his master will seem to retain more human dignity than the “thrall” who willingly submits. Furthermore, if the “thrall” can be brought to see his situation from this viewpoint even for a moment, it may break the spell. After such an insight, the psychological rewards of “enthrallment” cease, and the individual’s subjective state reflects his objective condition of bondage.

  After Barbro is kidnapped, Sherrinford tries to convince his own prisoner, Mistherd, to betray the Queen. The detective lures a group of “Outlings” within the range of his deactivated telepathy shield, and then turns it on, so that Mistherd for the first time sees the aborigines in their true guise. After the shock has made the youth ready to listen, Sherrinford explains his view of Mistherd’s situation. The detective later comments, “ ‘May I never see such bitterness again. He had been taught to believe he was free/ ” (p. 80) An example such as this, where a subject comes to see “enthrallment” and “slavery” as the same thing, shows the working of a general rule: the elimination of mystery will bring a relationship of Emanation to an end. Mystery is in a way the guarantee of the boundlessness of the might of the ruler: power bound to reason must always have limitations, great though it may be. Consequently it is at least helpful that there exist (as we have seen) “rational explanations” for the seeming miracles of the Darklands.

  Next, Anderson demonstrates that if one accepts a sham mystery as real, one has stopped or strayed in the search for truth, and truth has survival value. The net technological superiority of the human colonists over the aborigines—and the victories won through this technology—illustrate the point.

  Of course, mere survival is no ultimate end, either for Anderson or more particularly for the Queens subjects. People who see themselves as the extensions of a person or idea are often quite willing to be martyrs:

  “So you see I’m not afraid to die,” Mistherd declared, though his lips trembled a bit. “If I let you come in and do your manthings to my people, I’d have naught left worth living for.” (p. 71)

  Nevertheless, one of the rewards for the surrender of one’s will is supposed to be a feeling of fundamental security, and the Queen cannot preserve this feeling in her subjects in opposition to man’s engines:

  The Queen of Air and Darkness lifted an arm in summons. It halted, and none came to answer.

  For over the fountains and melodies lifted a gruesome growling. Fires leaped, thunders crashed. Her hosts scattered screaming before the steel thing which boomed up the mountainside, (p. 76)

  Though a full description of freedom may be too much for one novelette (it could be argued that Anderson has devoted a career to the question), we can at least know some of freedom’s characteristics and some of the things which it is not.

&nbs
p; Anderson is not urging an abjuration of the unconscious. He does not advocate a stainless-steel-and-enamel pseudorationalism. Man can and should reject false divinities such as the Queen, but he remains * necessarily and forever, a part of the life that surrounds him and a creature of the spirit within” (p. 43). On the expedition which results in the downfall of the Queen, Sherrinford and Barbro indeed use a manufactured “glower” to cook food, but Sherrinford also gathers wood “that they might later cheer themselves with a campfire” (p. 64). It is Barbro’s “irrational” love for her son— a love more irrational than most, since in it is bound up the memory of Jimmy’s dead father—and Sherrinford s “irrational” pity, and later love, for Barbro which impel the expedition in the first place.17

  Free, continuous choice promises the development of values which can never exist in the unreflective, carefree atmosphere of the Queen s realm. Mistherd, for example, cannot understand how a man and woman could possibly sleep close to one another without having sexual intercourse (p. 58). Earlier he has concluded of Sherrinford and Barbro that “no Dweller could be as persistent as she or as patient as he” (p. 53).18

  It is nevertheless quite possible that the “free” suffer more than the “enthralled.” Freedom brings responsibility and often guilt. It may indeed provide a deeper satisfaction and a richer life, but the evaluation of such rewards is a distressingly subjective process. Perhaps no argument in favor of liberty can satisfy the intellect; perhaps the best we can hope for is a shared emotional conviction. This could, indeed, help to explain why Anderson principally writes fiction.