Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra

by Poul Anderson

  World-building skills honed to unrivaled keenness over the decades have been lavished on these stories. The aliens are a roll call of wonders: the feline Tigeries and cetacean Seatrolls of Starkad (Ensign Flandry), the composite Didonians (The Rebel Worlds), and the lyncean Ramnuans (A Stone in Heaven. The three colonial planets are among Anderson's loveliest: snowy Slavic Dennitza (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows), ecologically sane Freehold ("Outpost of Empire," 1967), and austere Aeneas (The Rebel Worlds and The Day of Their Return, 1973). The last of these is especially note-worthy. It is a cool, dry globe ruled by mind and might, fittingly paired with a steamy hot, barbaric world called Dido. Aeneas has a tripartite social system on the traditional Indo-European model while the bizarre natives of Dido possess tripartite bodies. Compare this description of an Aenean landscape to the glimpses of Altai and Unan Besar quoted earlier:

  The sun was almost down. Rays ran gold across the Antonine Seabed, making its groves and plantations a patchwork of bluish-green and shadows, burning on its canals, molten in the mists that curled off a salt marsh. Eastward, the light smote crags and cliffs where the ancient continental shelf of Ilion lifted a many-tiered, wind-worn intricacy of purple, rose, ocher, tawny, black up to a royal blue sky. (The Rebel Worlds, chapter 6)

  But these novels subordinate aesthetic delights and even adventurousness to political observations. Ensign Flandry reflects the early stages of the Viet Nam War, The Rebel Worlds denounces radicalism, A Circus of Hells (1970) depicts the social impact of corruption, The Day of Their Return warns against charismatic movements, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows examines nationalism, and A Stone in Heaven exposes a would-be Hitler. Anderson regards politics as the cutting edge of history. Every situation, even something as petty as urban graft, is shown to have historical repercussions—there are no trivial deeds or minor events. Men forge their own tomorrows, blow by puny blow.

  The tomorrows thus wrought take shapes both fair and foul. Technic Civilization is a western-flavored, technophilic global order that arises during the twenty-first century after an era of chaos. Discovery of faster-than-light travel soon permits interstellar exploration and colonization. Human expansion beyond Earth is known as the Breakup. Trade among colonial and alien societies is controlled by the merchant-adventurers of the Polesotechnic League under conditions reminiscent of the Europe: an Age of Exploration. Nicholas van Rijn and his protégé David Falkayn flourish late in this period just as civilization is beginning to break down under the pressure of institutionalized greed. The bloody Time of Troubles follows. Manuel Argos founds the Terran Empire—the Principate phase of Technic civilization—and restores galactic order. His empire expands (peacefully and otherwise) to embrace a sphere 400 light-years in diameter until it collides with a younger and fiercer Imperium, the Roidhunate of Merseia. Dominic Flandry is born late in the Principate and lives into the Interregnum that follows, ending his days as a trusted Imperial advisor. The Empire degenerates into a cruel Dominate and the Long Night Flandry has labored so hard to postpone falls at last. But eventually civilization will revive. A new cycle will commence.4

  This is a plausible enough scenario despite its patchwork origins because Andersen sewed his imaginary future out of recurring motifs from the real past. His sound instincts for historical pattern-making were augmented after 1973 by the theories of historian and sf fan John K. Hord. Hord's system (as yet unpublished) is an attempt to go beyond Spengler and Toynbee by actually quantifying the historical process. He showed Anderson how well the Terran Empire fitted his model. Anderson enthusiastically resolved to make the fit even closer by altering dates and adopting Hord's terminology. The long conversation between Flandry and Chunderban Desai in Chapter Three of A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows summarizes Hord's scheme and A Stone in Heaven is dedicated to him.

  Aside from this influence, Anderson has become much more specific in his use of historical analogies in the past decade. Originally, Terra and Merseia were generalized Old and New Empires. Gradually, they began to resemble Rome and Persia. Although the Merseians have Welsh-sounding names and the self-discipline of samurai, they are Sassanid Persians in their social and political arrangements, their hunters' ethos, their romantic masculinity, and their militant xenophobia. Transforming the hostile "gatortails" into complex beings who promise their cubs stars for playthings is a fine example of Anderson's ability to refine his starting materials. (cf. chapter 3 of Ensign Flandry. A Circus of Hells shows the danger of admiring Merseians too much.)

  The Terran Empire's Roman aspects are more obvious. Terra's dynasties—the Argolids, Wangs, and Molitors—are roughly comparable to Rome's Julio-Claudians, Antonines, and Severi. The emperors Flandry serves correspond to specific Roman ones: Georgios is Marcus Aurelius, Josip is Commodus, Hans Molitor is Septimus Severus, Dietrich is Geta, and Gerhart is Caracalla. (Flandry himself has the cynical gallantry of a Byzantine aristocrat.) Terra and Merseia are doomed to exhaust each other as the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia did. Does some future cognate of Islam await its turn on the galactic stage?

  Yet however grand the scale of events he dramatizes, Anderson steadfastly treats history as the sum total of individual moral choices. He extols freedom, not mystical Necessity although he knows full well the grief free actions may breed. Every decision plants a seed that can bring forth fruits never foreseen. If Falkayn had not saved and humiliated the Merseians in "Day of Burning" (1967), they would not have survived to menace Flandry's society. But likewise, if Falkayn had not founded the colony of Avalon and his descendants successfully defended it against Terra in The People of the Wind, an Avalonian native would not have been on hand to save the Empire in The Day of Their Return.

  Flandry, who is Falkayn's counterpart even to his initials, demonstrates this truth with even grimmer clarity. His biography is a record of choice and consequence, sin and retribution. The nexus points in his life inevitably involve women, "The aliens among us!" (A Circus of Hells, chapter 20). This dramatic pattern expresses the author's own admitted gynolatry. Mistreating women is one of the worst things he can imagine Flandry—or anyone else—doing. Note that the killing of little girls is the ultimate outrage throughout Anderson's work.

  "Seeing the anguish upon her, Flandry knew in full what it meant to make an implement of a sentient being." (Ensign Flandry, chapter 13) These lines might apply to any number of Flandry's affairs. Maternal neglect explains but scarcely excuses his behavior. He is also a seducer, an exploiter, and a betrayer of women. Even his dangerous feud with his superior Fenross starts over a woman. Sadly, his best and bravest ladies lose the most because they care the most. Flandry's callousness towards Persis (Ensign Flandry) and Djana (A Circus of Hells) costs him both of his great loves, Kathryn (The Rebel Worlds ) and Kossura (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows), Eventually, after years of pointless dalliance with bored noblewomen and expensive whores, he finds a measure of peace with Miriam, the daughter of his old mentor Captain Abrams. She is one woman he never deceives (A Stone in Heaven).

  Furthermore, there is also a malign influence overshadowing Flandry, insuring he reaps even more sorrow than he sows. This is his great nemesis Aycharaych,5 the agent and witness of his woes, This alien genius darkens Flandry's life for more than a decade before they meet in person. Merseian master-spy Aycharaych surely has a hand in the Starkad plot that brings Flandry and Persis together. Aycharaych's special mind-training techniques arm Djana with the power she uses to curse Flandry so effectively. The two agents clash repeatedly and inconclusively until Aycharaych's machinations destroy both Flandry's favorite child and intended bride. He then destroys what Aycharaych loves best and scars his own spirit with the fury of his vengeance.

  Aycharaych claims kinship with his foe. "'Dominic, we share a soul, you and I. We have always been alone.'" (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 20. In a sense, the "Tom O'Bedlam" quote of the title applies to both beings.) But is the charge true? Granted that both enjoy their work and justify it by appealing to the
value of the ends they seek. Nevertheless, Flandry still retains a sense of righteousness even when cataloging his own vices. Aycharaych's principles transcend the normal categories of good and evil. He is in fact the galaxy's most sublime sadist, virtuoso in an art "'whose materials are living beings.'" (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 3) His enthralling charm is satanic at the core.

  Aycharaych, the last member of a supremely gifted Elder Race, guards his charnel homeworld Chereion. (Note the probably accidental associations in that name—Chiron, Charon, and carrion.) He kills without compunction to protect what is already dead. Aycharaych's depravity is best measured against the standards of a race as wise and ancient as his own—the Ice People of Altai. These beings are stewards of an evolving biosphere, not lifeless relics. They possess in truth the enlightenment he feigns.

  Flandry's service to dying Terra is not really comparable. His true allegiance is to the Empire's Pax rather than to the Empire as such—he calls himself a "'civilization loyalist'", not an imperialist in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (chapter 11). "Dead's dead," he says elsewhere, "My job is to salvage the living." (The Rebel Worlds, chapter 8) Human and other civilizations can survive Terra's fall. New births will surely follow her death as long as thinking beings endure.

  Ironically, Aycharaych is defeated by qualities he disdains—physical force, emotional violence, moral principle. Try as he may, he cannot really appreciate the intensity of love, courage, loyalty, or self-sacrifice in lesser beings and so miscalculates at critical moments. This recalls Anderson's Operation Chaos (1971) in which an ordinary American couple defeats the hosts of Hell. Moreover, there is something of Faerie in Aycharaych's subtle beauty and artfulness. Like the elves of fable, he finds the weight of his centuries oppressive and wonders about the effect of mortality on men: "'What depth does the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?'" (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 9) Anderson's judgment on the elves in The Broken Sword (1971) can be applied to Aycharaych: "'Happier are all men than the dwellers in Faerie—or the gods, for that matter, . . . Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself.'"

  Failure and death are the only certainties in this universe. There is no lasting shield against the pitiless arrow of Time. Yet intelligent beings prove their worth by the manner in which they meet their fates. "'If we're doomed to tread out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully,'" says Flandry. (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 3) The loom of history captures such experiences for us to share. No matter that here Anderson's threads happen to be imaginary rather than real. Whatever the scale—personal, dynastic, or cosmic—all the patterns he designs for his Technic Civilization tapestry convey the same message: "'We're mortal—which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful—but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?'" (Ensign Flandry, chapter 18)

  So despite all his flaws and denials of virtue, this ill-starred knight, Dominic Flandry, is truly a hero. He accepts the terrible consequences of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. He trades his own peace of soul for other beings' happiness. Even Aycharaych admires his bold, unyielding spirit. "'Your instincts are such that you can never accept dying.'" (Hunters of the Sky Cave, chapter 2) Flandry has won the right to boast with Kipling's battered chevalier:

  "Ay, they were strong, and the fight was long; But I paid as good as I got!"6

  FOOTNOTES

  1 "Galaxy Bookshelf," Galaxy. (June 1967), pp. 188-89. Flandry is actually the illegitimate son of an opera diva and a nobly-born space captain with antiquarian interests.

  2 "Galaxy Bookshelf," Galaxy (February 1966), p. 139

  3 These and other unattributed remarks are from personal communications between Anderson and Miesel.

  4 For a detailed account of Technic history, see my essay "The Price of Buying Time" originally published by Ace Books, 1979, an Afterword to A Stone in Heaven, the next to last novel of the Flandry series. A Stone in Heaven is included in Flandry’s Legacy (Baen, 2011) and “The Price of Buying Time” is included with the ebook edition of Flandry’s Legacy.

  5 These remarks incorporate some suggestions from critic Patrick McGuire.

  6 "The Quest"