VERSION 1.0 dtd 032700 POUL ANDERSON The Queen of Air and Darkness Poul ANDERSON was born November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, of Scandinavian parents. Part of his youth was spent in Denmark. He returned to the United States before World War II, and he sold his first story while a student at the University of Minnesota. When he graduated.with distinction, in 1948, he decided to try to support himself for a time with his writing before seeking employment in his area of specialization, physics. That for a time is approaching twenty-five years with the end happily not in sight. In 1953 Anderson married Karen Kruse, herself an author of fiction and poetry. They have one daughter, Astrid. They make their home in Orinda, California. Anderson's dazzling versatility as a writer is reflected in James Blish's description of him as ". . . the scientist, the technician, the stylist, the bard, the humanist and the humorist-a non-exhaustive list." He ranks as one of the most prolific science fiction writers of all times (a recently compiled bibliography, published in the April 1971 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction, fills seven pages!). From poetry to novels to short stories to nonfiction books and articles on a variety of subjects, he brilliantly combines the saga and song of his Scandinavian heritage with the searching mind and speculative science of the scholar. He also finds time for such varied activities as houseboat building, sailing, mountain climbing, gardening, chess, poker, Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and the Society for Creative Anachronism (where he is known as Bela of Eastmarch in its medieval tourneys)-another non-exhaustive list. Under his own name and his two pseudonyms, Winston P. Sanders and Michael Karageorge, he is the author of some fifty books and perhaps two hundred shorter items. His stories "No Truce with Kings," "The Longest Voyage" and "The Sharing of Flesh" won Hugo Awards. His mystery novel Perish by the Sword won the Cock Robin Award. Well- known science fiction novels are Brain Wave, The High Crusade, Three Hearts and Three Lions, Earthman's Burden (with Gordon R. Dickson), The Broken Sword, Alter Doomsday and Tau Zero. Recently anthologized stories are "Call Me Joe" (selected for inclusion in the SFWA Hall of Fame, Volume 2), "The Man Who Came Early," "Sam Hall," "Kings Who Die" and "Journeys End." His Time Patrol series was collected in Guardians of Time. Other series concern Nicholas van Rijn, the interstellar trader, Dominic Flandry and Trygve Yamamura. Anderson's novel The Byworlder was a finalist in the balloting for the 1971 Nebula Awards; and his novelette "The Queen of Air and Darkness" won a Nebula Award. The last glow of the last sunset would linger almost until midwinter. But there would be no more day, and the northlands rejoiced. Blossoms opened, flamboyance on firethorn trees, steelflowers rising blue from the brok and rainplant that cloaked all hills, shy whiteness of kiss-me- never down in the dales. Flitteries darted among them in iridescent wings; a crownbuck shook his horns and bugled. Between horizons the sky deepened from purple to sable. Both moons were aloft, nearly full, shining frosty on leaves and molten on waters. The shadows they made were blurred by an aurora, a great blowing curtain of light across half heaven. Behind it the earliest stars had come out. A boy and a girl sat on Wolund's Barrow just under the dolmen it upbore. Their hair, which streamed halfway down their backs, showed startlingly forth, bleached as it was by summer. Their bodies, still dark from that season, merged with earth and bush and rock, for they wore only garlands. He played on a bone flute and she sang. They had lately become lovers. Their age was about \. sixteen, but they did not know this, considering themselves Out..lings and thus indifferent to time, remembering little or nothing of how they had once dwelt in the lands of men. His notes piped cold around her voice: "Cast a spell, weave it well of dust and dew and night and you." A brook by the grave mound, carrying moonlight down to a hillhidden river, answered with its rapids. A flock of hellbats passed black beneath the aurora. A shape came bounding over Cloudmoor. It had two arms and' two legs, but the legs were long and claw-footed and feather covered it to the end of a tail and broad wings. The face was half, human, dominated by its eyes. Had Ayoch been able to standwholly erect, he would have reached to the boy's shoulder. The girl rose. "He carries a burden," she said. Her vision was not.. meant for twilight like that of a northland creature born, but she had learned how to use every sign her senses gave her. Besides the,fact that ordinarily a pook would fly, there was a heaviness to his haste. "And he comes from the south." Excitement jumped in the boy, sudden as a green flame that went across the constellation Lyrth. He sped down the mound. "Ohoi, Ayoch!" he called. "Me here,: Mistherd!" "And Shadow-of-a-Dream," the girl laughed, following. The pook halted. He breathed louder than the soughing in the growth around him. A smell of bruised yerba lifted where he stood. "Well met in winterbirth," he whistled. "You can help me bring this to Carheddin." He held out what he bore. His eyes were yellow lanterns above. It moved arid whimpered. "Why, a child," Mistherd said. "Even as you were, my son, even as you were. Ho, ho, what a snatchl" Ayoch boasted. "They were a score in yon camp by Fallowwood, armed, and besides watcher engines they had big ugly dogs aprowl while they slept. I came from above, however, having spied on them till I knew that a handful of dazedust " "The poor thing." Shadow-of-a-Dream took the boy and held him to her small breasts. "So full of sleep yet, aren't you?" Blindly, he sought a nipple. She smiled through the veil of her-hair. "No, I am still too young, and you already too old. But come, when you wake in Carheddin under the mountain, you shall feast." "Yo-ah; " said Ayoch very softly. "She is abroad and has heard and seen. She comes." He crouched down, wings folded. After a moment Mistherd knelt, and then Shadow-of-a-Dream, though she did not let go the child. The Queen's tall form blocked off the moons. For a while she regarded the three and their booty. Hill and moor sounds withdrew from their awareness until it seemed they could hear the northlights hiss. At last Ayoch whispered, "Have I done well, Starmother?" "If you stole a babe from a camp full of engines," said the beautiful voice, "then they were folk out of the far south who may not endure it as meekly as yeomen." "But what can they do, Snowmaker?" the pook asked. "How can they track us?" Mistherd lifted his head and spoke in pride. "Also, now they too have felt the awe of us." "And he is a cuddly dear," Shadow-of-a-Dream said. "And we need more like him, do we not, Lady Sky?" "It had to happen in some twilight," agreed she who stood above. "Take him onward and care for him. By this sign," which she made, "is he claimed for the Dwellers." Their joy was freed. Ayoch cartwheeled over the ground till he reached a shiverleaf. There he swarmed up the trunk and out on a limb, perched half hidden by unrestful pale foliage, and crowed. Boy and girl bore the child toward Carheddin at an easy distancedevouring lope which let him pipe and hey sing: "Wahaii, wahaii! Wayala, laii! - Wing on the wind high over heaven, shrilly shrieking, rush with the rainspears, tumble through tumult, drift to the moonhoar trees and the dream-heavy shadows beneath them, and rock in, be one with the clinking wavelets of lakes where the starbeams drown." * As she entered, Barbro Cullen felt, through all grief and fury, stabbed by dismay. The room was unkempt. Journals, tapes, reels, codices, file boxes, bescribbled papers were piled on every table. Dust filmed most shelves and corners. Against one wall stood a laboratory setup, microscope and analytical equipment. She recognized it as compact and efficient, but it was not what you would expect in an office, and it gave the air a faint chemical reek. The rug was threadbare, the furniture shabby. This was her final chance? Then Eric Sherrinford approached. "Good day, Mrs. Cullen," he said. His tone was crisp, his handclasp firm. His faded gripsuit didn't bother her. She wasn't inclined to fuss about her own appearance except on special occasions. (And would she ever again have one, unless she got back Jimmy?) What she observed was a cat's personal neatness. A smile radiated in crow's feet from his eyes. "Forgive my bachelor housekeeping. On Beowulf we have-we had, at any ratemachines for that, so I never acquired the habit myself, and I don't want a hireling disarranging my tools. More convenient to work out of my apartment than keep a separate office. Won't you be seated?" "No, thanks. I couldn't," she mumbled. "I understand. But if you'll excuse me, I function best in a relaxed position." He jackknifed into a lounger. One long shank crossed the other knee. He drew forth a pipe and stuffed it from a pouch. Barbro wondered why he took tobacco in so ancient a way. Wasn't Beowulf supposed to have the up-to-date equipment that they still couldn't afford to build on Roland? Well, of course old customs might survive anyhow. They generally did in colonies, she remembered reading. People had moved starward in the hope of preserving such outmoded things as their mother tongues or constitutional government or rational-technological civilization .... Sherrinford pulled her up from the confusion of her weariness. "You must give me the details of your case, Mrs. Cullen. You've simply told me your son was kidnapped and your local constabulary did nothing. Otherwise, I know just a few obvious facts, such as your being widowed rather than divorced; and you're the daughter of outwayers in Olga lvanoff Land wh...
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