My favorite spaceship crew should be the bridge crew of the original starship Enterprise, shouldn't it? Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, along with Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura, are an important part of my childhood and I never get tired of watching TOS episodes. (Well, except for "Spock's Brain.") The character dynamics and interactions were perfectly balanced and the best of those episodes (along with Wrath of Khan) are superb science fiction.
But, well--though I may be betraying both my childhood and my fellow Trekkies everywhere, I must admit that there is a spaceship crew I like a little bit better. Just a little bit, mind you. But there you are.
David Falkyn, Chee Lan and Adzel are not explorers in the purest sense. They work for Solar Spice and Liquors and their job is to find new markets for trade. Many planets have furs, spices, pharmaceuticals and so on that can be sold for high prices on other planets. So when a planet is identified as a possible source of trade, the three merchants fly their ship Muddlin' Through to that planet to make a trade agreement.
They appear in stories and novels written by Poul Anderson--part of his Future History that includes an era in which the Polesotechnic League era, in which galactic expansion and exploration is fueled by capitalism. Falkyn had already appeared in several stories, but it is when he is given his own crew that he really takes off.
Falkyn is human. The feline-like Chee Lan is a xenobiologist from the planet Cynthia. The huge, centauroid (scary-looking but sweet and even-tempered) Adzel is a planetologist from a world called Woden. And, though their personalities do not parallel those of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, they establish a similar rapport and work together just as effectively. They are awesome.
In a way, Falkyn and crew have an unfair advantage over the Enterprise command crew, since there were no budget and technical restrictions limiting the use of aliens. That two of the three Muddlin' Through crew are non-humanoid aliens does give them a coolness factor that the TV show could not quite emulate.
They first team up in the novela "Trade Team," serialized in the July and August 1965 issues of Analog Science Fiction. Anderson later rewrote it as "The Trouble Twisters" and it became the title story in an anthology of stories featuring Falkyn.
This first adventure finds the team on Ikrananka, a small world that orbits around a small sun, though close enough to allow for life to exist. At first, that life seems to consist primarily of the native intelligent species, who are furred, beaked and stand about five feet tall. They have a pre-industrial technology, though it is eventually learned that one particular city is experimenting with Leyden jars and other methods of generating electricity.
The team lands near an outlying city of an empire and begin negotiations. It is soon apparent that the local Ikranankan authorities are stalling, though. And when a human woman being chased by Ikranankans is seen, she becomes one heck of a wild card.
There is a human community on Ikrananka--the descendants of humans stranded on the planet by space pirates a few generations earlier. Because of their size and their increased strength due to the low gravity, they have become soldiers. But one human faction has rebelled against the empire and taken possession of a city, which the imperial army is now besieging.
From David's point-of-view, rebellion and war is bad. Aside from moral considerations (which the merchants do not ignore), it's bad for trade. To establish steady trade here, there needs to be stability. David initially thinks that helping the empire squash the rebellion might be the best plan--with the technology aboard the Muddlin' Through, they could do so without killing anyone. But the girl (named Stepha) objects to this and soon arranges for Falkyn to be kidnapped. In the meantime, Chee Lan is jailed by the Ikranankan and Adzel is soon a fugitive. Bad luck leaves both of them with broken radios, so they can't call the A.I. on their ship (named Muddlehead) for rescue. Nor can they reach the now heavily-guarded ship alive.
All this trouble must thus be twisted about to turn their desperate situation to an opportunity to force the various factions on the planet to come to terms and, of course, start buying their stuff.
"The Trouble Twisters" is an excellent and exciting Sci-Fi story. Anderson was skilled at world-building, making the Ikranankan society interesting and believable. The action flows smoothly throughout the tale, with lots of plot twists to which my brief summary does not do justice. And the interplay between Falkyn, Chee, Adzel and Muddlehead are often priceless and the story as a whole is full of humor that never takes away from the sound plot. We completely accept that these three completely different beings and their computer can come together to form an effective team. They are indeed my favorite spaceship crew.
Sorry, Captain Kirk. That's just the way it is.
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