{"id":358,"date":"2021-01-20T15:17:44","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T15:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=358"},"modified":"2021-02-04T15:27:55","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T15:27:55","slug":"staras-flonderans-by-kate-wilhelm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=358","title":{"rendered":"Staras Flonderans by Kate Wilhelm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Staras Flonderans<\/em><\/strong> by Kate Wilhelm (Orbit #1<\/em>, 1966) opens with two humans and a long-lived alien called Staeen closing in on a wrecked and tumbling spaceship that appears to be abandoned. Throughout their craft\u2019s approach to the wreck, which they intend to investigate, we learn various things about Staeen, including the fact that he is tulip-shaped, is very long lived, can survive unsuited in space, and is able to sense the men\u2019s emotions. Staeen also, in common with the rest of his race, feels a paternalistic concern for the men (who they call Flonderans):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Flonderans had come to Chlaesan, they had been greeted with friendliness and amusement. So eager, so impulsive, so childlike. The name Earthmen was rarely used for them; they remained the Flonderans, the children. It amused Staeen to think that when they had still been huddling in caves, more animal than man, his people already had mapped the galaxy; when they had been floundering with sails on rough seas, engrossed in mapping their small world, his people already had populated hundreds of planets, light-years away from one another.  p. 14<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When the three of them go aboard the wreck they come to realise that the missing crew used all the lifeboats to abandon the ship, a course of action that would only have kept them alive for a few hours longer because of the limited oxygen carried. Mystified, they leave. However, when they return on a further search, Staeen picks up various vibes that make him realise that the crew left the ship \u201cin the madness of fear,\u201d but he does not tell the humans as he thinks they will not accept his discovery.
The final act of the story involves the three of them subsequently encountering a Thosar spaceship, a race who only pass through the galaxy every twelve thousand years, and who mankind have never come into contact with. Staeen explains to the men that the Thosars are huge creatures, and that they will send representatives to the ship but stay outside. When they get close enough to be seen (spoiler) the humans go into a blind panic and accelerate their ship away at a pace that almost kills the three of them. Staeen eventually manages to turn off the drive but, when the men come around, they get into their suits and flee through the airlock, dragging Staeen with them.
Staeen then floats in space contemplating his demise, and concludes that the human\u2019s panic response must be down to a previous visit to Earth by the Thosars in prehistoric times, where they inadvertently terrified the primitive humans and some sort of genetic or race memory was laid down.
There is much to like in the first part of this story\u2014it is a readable example of a traditional SF tale, the kind of thing you could easily imagine finding in Analog<\/em>\u2014but the ending is just ridiculous. Apart from the fact that the reason for the human\u2019s terror is never specified (the Thosars have one eye and there is a brief mention of \u201cBi\u2014\u201d), you would hide in the ship if something terrified you, not jump out the airlock to a place you are even more exposed. And the generational chicken-fleeing-from-chickenhawk response that Staeen uses to explain the human\u2019s behaviour could not have been imprinted on mankind in one visit. It all just falls apart.
PS According to Staeen, Staras eku Flonderans<\/em> means \u201cpoor, short-lived Earthmen.\u201d
* (Mediocre). 5,800 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staras Flonderans by Kate Wilhelm (Orbit #1, 1966) opens with two humans and a long-lived alien called Staeen closing in on a wrecked and tumbling spaceship that appears to be abandoned. Throughout their craft\u2019s approach to the wreck, which they intend to investigate, we learn various things about Staeen, including the fact that he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[21,123,11,122,12],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kate-wilhelm","tag-21","tag-123","tag-kate-wilhelm","tag-orbit-1","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}