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most of the conscious mind along with it. Terens then arranged to be transferred to Florina as Townman and took the Spatio-analyst along with him on forged papers. Terens reveals that, according to the Spatio-analyst, Florina's sun is in the pre-nova stage. All he can remember about the details is "the carbon current of space" and "catalytic effect." |
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Up to now, no one has been able to predict novas. Junz points out, however, that one of the two stellar nuclear transformations uses carbon as an intermediate stage, or catalyst, in the process of changing hydrogen into helium. He speculates that Rik has traced a carbon current in space and that a star passing through a current containing unusual concentrations of carbon becomes unstable, the star's radiation is boosted tremendously, and the outer layers explode into a nova. |
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Both Fife and Abel raise doubts about the evacuation of Florina on the basis of such an unsubstantiated theory. Junz points out, however, that the matter concerns the whole Galaxy, since twenty full novas occur every year and another two thousand stars shift their radiation characteristics sufficiently to render their planets uninhabitable. Every fifty years, then, an inhabited planet becomes too hot for life, and every five thousand years some inhabited planet has a fifty-fifty chance of being puffed to gas by a nova. If Trantor does nothing for Florina, the other people in the Galaxy will feel that nothing will be done for them either if help is in the way of the economic convenience of a few powerful men. |
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Abel still is not convinced until Junz points out that Florina produces kyrt because its sun is in the pre-nova stage. With this information, it will be possible to produce kyrt anywhere. Junz suggests that Trantor buy Florina from Sark and evacuate it. Terens is put in charge of the evacuation. |
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In an Epilog, a year later, Florina has been almost completely evacuated. Rik and Valona are married, and Rik is content to go back to Earth and work there, unfit any longer to be a Spatio-analyst because the anxiety that made him one is gone but able to live once more on the radioactive Earth that had made him anxious. Terens, going down with his planet, has been granted permission to stay on Florina until the end. |
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In spite of the obvious improvements in The Currents of Space over The Stars, Like Dust, the book also has some clear weaknesses. The apparent hero and heroine, Rik and Valona, are more acted upon than actors, and they develop little during the progress of the novel. The role of the real hero, Terens, who precipitates the events of the novel out of his rage at the Squires and love for Florina, is obscured because of plot necessities. |
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