Captive of the Centaurianess
A Novel of Primitive Future Worlds
By POUL ANDERSON
The entire System was after Ballantyne.
Earth wanted him. The Jovian war-fleet jetted
on his trail. But mainly Ballantyne feared his
big-bosomed, sword-swinging space-mate—Dyann
the Amazon from man-starved Alpha C3.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The hero is the child of his times, in that his milieu furnishes him with motives and means, and yet the hero seizes the time and shapes it as he will. And he remains an enigma to his contemporaries and to the future.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the strange story of the three whose discoveries and achievements determined the whole course of history. The driving idealism and bold military genius of Dyann Korlas; the mighty wisdom, profound and benign, of Urushkidan; above all, perhaps, the transcendent clarity of mind and inspired leadership of Ballantyne—these molded our century and all centuries to come, and yet we will never understand them, they are too far beyond us and their essential selves must be forever a mystery.
—Vallabbhai Rasmussen, History
of the Twenty-third Century, v. 1