This is by way of being a companion piece to “Like A Thousand Iron Curtains.”
It’s comprised of relevant excerpts from Poul Anderson’s Hugo winning story, “The Longest Voyage.”

If you ever intended to read it for yourself, you should be aware that I’m about to give away the ending. Fair warning…

THE SET-UP…

If the stars are indeed suns like our own, each attended by planets like our own, this demolishes the crystal-sphere theory…Scripture has never said in so many words that Paradise lies directly above the birthplace of God’s Daughter; this was merely assumed, during those centuries when the earth was believed to be flat. Why should Paradise not be those planets of other suns, where men dwell in magnificence, men who possess all the ancient arts and flit from star to star as casually as we might go from Lavre to West Alayn?

Val Nira believed our ancestors had been cast away on this world, several thousand years ago. They must have been fleeing the consequences of some crime or heresy, to come so far from any human domain. Somehow their ship was wrecked, the survivors back to savagery, only by degrees have their descendants regained a little knowledge. I cannot see where this explanation contradicts the dogma of the Fall. Rather, it amplifies it. The Fall was not the portion of all mankind, but only of a few—our own tainted blood—while the others continued to dwell prosperous and content in the heavens.

Even today, our world lies far off the trade lanes of the Paradise folk. Very few of them nowadays have any interest in seeking new worlds. Val Nira, though, was such a one. He traveled at hazard for months until he chanced upon our earth. Then the curse seized him, too. He descended upon Ulas-Erkila, and the Ship would fly no more.

VAL NIRA’S PITCH…

“I know what the damage is,” he said ardently. “I’ve not forgotten…a certain subtle engine in the ship requires quicksilver… I need no more than the volume of a man’s head. Only that, and a few repairs easily made with tools in the ship. When this cult grew up around me, I must needs release certain things I possessed, that each provincial temple might have a relic. But I took care never to give away anything important. Whatever I need is still there.”

“…the dwellers in the Milky Way are dangerous to none, helpful to all. They have so much wealth they’re hard put to find a use for most of it. Gladly would they spend large amounts to help all the people on this world become civilized again.”…”Fully civilized, I mean. We’ll teach you our arts. We’ll give you engines, automata, homunculi, that do all the toilsome work; and boats that fly through the air; and regular passenger service on those ships that ply between the stars—“

“When my people come here, there’ll be no more war, no more oppression, they’ll cure you of all such diseases. They’ll show friendship to all and favor to none…”

…Rovic and Froad questioned him eagerly about his home. Of course, all their talk was in fragments. Nor did I hear everything… But what I did hear kept me long awake.

Ah, greater marvels than the poets have imagined for Elf Land! Entire cities built in a single tower half a mile high. The sky made to glow so that there is no true darkness after sunset. Food not grown in the earth, but manufactured in alchemical laboratories. The lowest peasant owning a score of machines which serve him more subtly and humbly than might a thousand slaves—owning an aerial carriage which can fly him around his world in less than a day—owning a crystal window on which theatrical images appear, to beguile his abundant leisure. Argosies between suns, stuffed with the wealth of a thousand planets; yet every ship unarmed and unescorted, for there are no pirates and this realm has long ago come to such good terms with the other starfaring nations that war has also ceased. (These other countries, it seems are more akin to the supernatural than Val Nira’s, in that the races composing them are not human, though able to speak and reason.) In this happy land there is little crime. When it does occur, the criminal is soon captured by the arts of the provost corps; yet he is not hanged, nor even transported overseas. Instead his mind is cured of the wish to violate any law. He returns home to live as an especially honored citizen, since all know he is now completely trustworthy. As for the government—but here I lost the thread of discourse. I believe it is in the form of a republic, but in practice a devoted fellowship of men, chosen by examination, who see to the welfare of everyone else.

Surely, I thought, this was Paradise!

Our sailors listened with mouths agape. Rovic’s mien was reserved, but he gnawed his mustaches incessantly. Guzan, to whom this was an old tale, grew rough of manner. Plain to see, he disliked our intimacy with Val Nira, and the ease wherewith we grasped ideas that were spoken.

But then, we came of a nation which has long encouraged natural philosophy and improvement of all mechanic arts. I myself, in my short lifetime, had witnessed the replacement of the waterwheel in regions where there are few streams, by the modern form of windmill. The pendulum clock was invented the year before I was born. I had read many romances about flying machines which no few men have tried to devise. Living at such a dizzy pace of progress, we Montalirians were well prepared to entertain still vaster concepts.

THE PRIZE…

In length—height, rather, since it stood on its tail—it was about equal to our own caravel, in form not unlike a lance head, in color a shining white untarnished after forty years. That was all. But words are paltry, my lord. What can they show of clean soaring curves, of iridescence on burnished metal, of a thing which was proud and lovely and in its very shape aquiver to be off? How can I conjure back the glamor which hazed that Ship whose keel had cloven starlight?

We stood there for a long time…

The interior was lit by luminous panels, cool to the touch. Val Nira explained that the great engine which drove it—as if the troll of folklore were put on a treadmill—was intact, and would furnish power at the flick of a lever. As nearly as I could understand what he said, this was done by changing the metallic part of ordinary salt into light…so I do not understand after all. The quicksilver was required for a part of the controls, which channeled power from the engine into another mechanism that hurtled the Ship skyward.

CAPTAIN ROVIC’S DECISION…

Even that adamantine hull could not withstand a wagonload of carefully placed gunpowder, set off at one time. There came a crash that knocked me to my knees, and the hull cracked open. White-hot chunks of metal screamed across the slopes…I saw the Ship fall. It rolled down the slope, strewing its own mangled guts behind…More than this I have no heart to remember.

CAPTAIN ROVIC EXPLAINS WHY…

“I was not afraid Guzan or anyone else would seize the Ship and try to turn conqueror. We men of Montalir should well be able to deal with any such rogues. Nor was I afraid of the Paradise dwellers. That poor little man could only have been telling truth. They would never have harmed us…willingly. They would have brought precious gifts, and taught us their own esoteric arts, and let us visit all their stars.”

“Then why?”

“Someday Froad’s successors will solve the riddles of the universe. Someday our descendants will build their own Ship, and go forth to whatever destiny they wish. Meanwhile, we’ll sail the seas of this earth, and walk its mountains, and chart and come to understand it. Do you see, Zhean? That is what the Ship would have taken from us.”

What would you have done?