A Twelvemonth and a Day

Twelve centuries after the fall of the Commonwealth left Gwydion on its own, the survey ship Quetzal arrives to site a refueling base and to size up a world that has quietly outlived the entire Terran Empire. Commandant Raven and his companions find a people who have forgotten violence altogether, serene, hospitable, and untroubled by the wars that shaped everyone else. Poul Anderson later expanded the novella into The Night Face; here the unease beneath Gwydion's calm is only beginning to show.