Subject: (urth) Travelin' Jahlee

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:23:38 +0000

Jahlee came to Blue at least twice. The fact that she fed on infant Sinew
and was mother to Krait is sufficient proof of that. She had to return to
Green to spawn, then came back to Blue, was caught and buried under stones,
then dug up by Silkhorn. That much is certain.

What is less clear is how she got to Blue the first time, when she bit
Sinew.

Sinew was conceived on the _Whorl_, so he could have been no more than 2 or
3 years old when bitten; he was still small enough to be sleeping in a
basket made by Nettle. In the scene where Silkhorn and Jahlee made that
impromptu astral visit to Green, the visit where she got left behind in that
room on the high cliff, she told him about learning to fly. She said that it
had taken her "years" just to be able to fly up to the room (IGJ, 61), and
even after reaching it that she still had to learn more before attempting
the Crossing.

It's also clear from that scene that she already had a human spirit when she
was very young; that is what motivated her to want to make the crossing.
Presumably she was born with it. So, the question is: If Sinew was attacked
by Jahlee during the first 2 or 3 years of colonization, before she was able
to make the Crossing under her own power, how did she get to Blue?

I can think of only one solution -- she came on a lander. Either she boarded
one of those landers that returned to the _Whorl_ automatically (like
Abanja's), then went from the _Whorl_ to Blue on the same or another lander,
or, she went directly from Green to Blue on a lander, like the slave ship
from Pajarocu. Either way, what was Wolfe's point in having her go to Blue
before she could fly properly?

Has anyone a better answer?

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:59:10 +0000

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:23:24 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>What is less clear is how she got to Blue the first time, when she 

>bit
>basket made by Nettle. In the scene where Silkhorn and Jahlee made 

>that
>Presumably she was born with it. So, the question is: If Sinew was 

>attacked
>from Pajarocu. Either way, what was Wolfe's point in having her go 

>to Blue

Wolfe may have nodded. 

Otherwise, you have to get around that "years" comment (which I'd 
forgotten when I posted about this a few days ago). I guess it's 
just possible that "years" = "~2 years", which might give Jahlee 
just enough time, assuming that young inhumi reach maturity very 
quickly. 

Do we know how long it takes a inhuma to grow to a point where she 
might be like young Jahlee, yearning to fly to Blue? Maybe it's not 
very long at all. (And of course there's the problem of what 
exactly a "year" is, in Green terms.)

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 23:33:39 +0000

Thalassocrat quoted and wrote:
>>Either way, what was Wolfe's point in having her go
>
>>to Blue

>Wolfe may have nodded.

Maybe. But I have the feeling I'm missing something. Silkhorn even asked
her, in so many words, if her first visit to that room had been made before
her first trip to Blue. "She did not answer." (60) There has to be more to
it!

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:49:00 +0000

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 23:33:27 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>Maybe. But I have the feeling I'm missing something. Silkhorn even 

>asked
>her first trip to Blue. "She did not answer." (60) There has to be 

>more to

Perhaps the mystery of the tall figure with the bird-like gait & 
the squat, dome-like building up the top have to be solved first. 

I continue to hope that the figure is a Neighbor-naut and the 
"building" is his spacecraft, his close-fitting cloak (or whatever 
the description) is his spacesuit, and that this is the point from 
which Neighbors take inhumi to seed the Whorl. I posted a long time 
ago some flimsy reasons for thinking this might be the case; 
partly, the figure seemed to me the most plausible candidate 
Neighbor for telling Silkhorn about the Whorl-seeding.

As I mentioned, another possibility for the Jahlee timeline is that 
one of her parents was one of these Whorl-inhumi, returned by the 
Neighbors to Green (and presumably to this region of Green, which 
would explain what the young Jahlee was doing there). If this 
return happened before the first human exodus from the Whorl, it 
would give Jahlee plenty of time to grow & become a void-crosser.

One thing to note: I think it must be the case that the Neighbors 
took primitve inhumi to the Whorl, let them drink human blood, 
brought them back to Green, let them breed & then took some of the 
sentient offspring back to the Whorl. How else to explain Quetzal?

---

From: don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:43:58 +0000

> sentient offspring back to the Whorl. How else to

Well, Quetzal could have been on the Whorl since birth
and come from Urth (if Jahlee can come back from being
buried for years then anything's possible) or he could
be the offspring of inhumi from Urth (or its system). 
It's no more convoluted than the above explanation, in
fact less so.

Don

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:25:24 +0000

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:43:54 -0700 don doggett 
>It's no more convoluted than the above explanation, in

Well, except that we know that the Neighbors did put inhumi on the 
Whorl (at least, Silkhorn said they did), while AFAIK there's no 
reason for thinking that there were any inhumi in Urth's system.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:39:08 +0000

Thalassocrat wrote:
[snip]
>would give Jahlee plenty of time to grow & become a void-crosser.

I don't know if the Neighbors were involved or not, but I have been
inexcusably forgetful -- I had just read the passage the other day! Of
course Jahlee traveled by lander -- she expressly said so during that astral
trip to Sinew's village. "I was just a little girl when they put me on the
lander." (IGJ, 369) She also again didn't answer the question about how long
ago it had been, but it was a time when there were fewer humans on Green. It
isn't certain from the surrounding text whether she was coming or going on
the lander, or to or from where.

>sentient offspring back to the Whorl. How else to explain Quetzal?

I believe that when the _Whorl_ first reached the Short Sun system, landers
were sent down to scout the planets. That could have been the point of
contamination, whether it involved the Neighbors or not. I think that's what
Silkhorn was hinting at in his talk with Abanja. (ibid., 370-371)

>>From scattered comments in SS, it seems that about 23 years elapsed on Blue
between the exodus and, say, Jahlee's death. The same time frame for Green
seems to have been about 25 years, according to Abanja (365). The planets
seem to be too close together for the differences in their solar orbits to
be very great. Certainly any difference in the amount of time between the
exodus and Jahlee's attack on Sinew, say three years as measured by either
planet's calendar, is too small to be significant for our purposes.

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:34:25 +0000

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:38:36 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 

>Silkhorn was hinting at in his talk with Abanja. (ibid., 370-371)

Just to be clear, Silkhorn does say later that the Neighbors took 
inhumi to the Whorl, and using them studied humans for a long time 
(RTTW 235-6).

In the passage you quote, he says that landers must have been sent 
down from the Whorl before Auk's party left. But it seems clear to 
me that at this point he doesn't know about the Neighbors' 
responsibility for the inhumi on the Whorl, and my guess is that he 

here surmises (incorrectly) that landers are the only way inhumi 
could have reached it. (Jahlee establishes in this passage that the 

Whorl is too distant for inhumi to reach unaided from Green.)  Is 
there any other evidence in the text for such pre-exodus lander 
traffic, apart from this passage?

I've always assumed that Jahlee's lander comment in the IGJ passage 

is just a lie, maintaining the fiction that she's human (Silkhorn 
has just revealed that she had been on Green before; if she's a 
human, she must have left by lander, and so on).

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 23:29:26 +0000

>inhumi to the Whorl, and using them studied humans for a long time

Yes, the Neighbors took inhumi to the _Whorl_. But I don't think they
studied humans for a "long time". Just for the time (beginning
thirty-something years before the exodus?) the _Whorl_ was in orbit around
the Short Sun. Vadsig asked, "To greet us it was?" Silkhorn answered, "You
might put it so, though they were sensible enough to find out a good deal
about us -- and infect us with inhumi -- Before they ventured to greet even
a few of us." He goes on to say of the Neighbor's, "the civilization they
had built had failed them".

That's what I meant about the "point of contamination". I think that point
was reached when the _Whorl_ first reached the Short Sun system and sent
down exploratory landers. The Neighbors were effectively extinct on Green
(as on Blue), therefore there were no sentient inhumi there then. The few
Neighbors remaining on Green (as on Blue) were little more than ghostly
caretakers. Their technology, like their cities, was in ruins. Maybe they
had some magical (to humans) means of transporting themselves and other
cargo from one place to another, but I don't recall any evidence of it. I'm
suggesting that they made use of the earliest landers to move inhumi (and
perhaps themselves) between Green and the _Whorl_. That's how Quetzal got
there.

>traffic, apart from this passage?

Offhand, I don't know.

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 05:31:34 +0000

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 23:29:17 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 

>perhaps themselves) between Green and the _Whorl_. That's how 

Damn - I was sure some explicit mention was made somewhere of the 
Neighbors having spacecraft, but now I can't find anything. I do 
have the Neighbor testifying at Silkhorn's trial: "I was one of 
those who boarded your Whorl when it neared our sun." So Neighbors, 
and probably inhumi, went to the Whorl before it reached orbit.

Now obviously that doesn't necessarily mean that he had his own 
space-craft: scouting landers could have been sent out from the 
Whorl before it went into orbit - but is that very likely? Or the 
Neighbor could have astral-travelled there. But we don't know (do 
we?) of any other occasion when anybody gets to astral travel to a 
place they or a companion haven't visited previously. Perhaps the 
Neighbors can do it; I don't know.

But if they can't, when they went to their new home (the "Neighbor 
Whorl" or whatever it's called), they must have gone physically - 
in space-craft. 

At the end of IGJ, Silkhorn says to some Neighbors: "Will the 
inhumi really drive us away as they did you?" One replies: "Back to 
your ship, you mean?" Silkhorn says: "that isn't possible ... There 
are very few landers in working order ..." And the Neighbor 
responds: "Then they cannot drive you away as they did us."

Again, nothing definitive, but to me it suggests that the Neighbors 
did indeed leave in spacecraft. Obviously, they can return in 
astral form, but the going was physical.

Now as to the Neighbors transporting inhumi to the Whorl: all of 
the above aside, the Neighbors might have some magic matter 
transfer way of doing this, but there's nothing in the text to 
suggest it. Any astral type of travelling would not have delivered 
blood-drinking inhumi, unless it was totally different from any of 
the astral travelling in the text. So I get left with 
transportation via space-craft, probably Neighborly, not human 
landers, because it probably happened before the Whorl went into 
orbit, and it seems unlikely that any kind of human scouting of the 
system would have happened that early.

The final issue is whether any of these putative Neighbor space-
craft might be present in the Short Sun system. I think the answer 
is probably yes. Silkhorn tells Vadsig in the relevant passage that 
the Neighbors took inhumi with them as "mirrors". But they can only 
function as mirrors (I believe) if they are allowed to breed. As 
far as we know, that can only happen on Green, and only when they 
are present on Green in their physical form. 

So there must be some way of transporting them physically to Green, 
as part of a continuing process. Which leads me back to the bird-
gaited figure and the squat dome on top of the cliff tower, the 
place where apparently the Neighbors had their last permanent 
presence, and a natural candidate for a place to drop off blooded 
inhumi and collect their offspring.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 23:46:49 +0000

>and probably inhumi, went to the Whorl before it reached orbit.

Okay, you're right about the point of first contact between Neighbors and
humans having occurred shortly before the _Whorl_ reached orbit. And I do
believe that that *was* the first ever contact between Neighbors and humans.

>Neighbor could have astral-traveled there. But we don't know (do

I'm not sure that what the Neighbors do is astral travel as Silkhorn knows
it. If it is, where are their sleeping bodies? If wherever they live is a
physical place (as opposed to some mystical "higher plane" of existence),
such as another planet around another sun, then clearly they are able to
travel by some sort of "magical", non-technological means to Blue and Green.
The Neighbors had a lot more experience with astral travel than Silkhorn;
perhaps they needn't have been to their destination previously. But that's
pure speculation.

>Whorl" or whatever it's called), they must have gone physically -

Perhaps. But even if that's true, it was a long time ago. One of the
Neighbors said that they had to deal with their inhumi problem "a thousand
years ago."

>astral form, but the going was physical.

And the other Neighbor in that conversation said, "You cannot go where we
are." That throws a monkey wrench into the equation. If wherever the
Neighbors lived had been reached by spacecraft, then it *could* be reached
by spacecraft. What is there to prevent human spacecraft from going where
Neighbor spacecraft have gone? Mankind had shown itself to be a master at
space travel, second to none. Even the tired old _Whorl_ could be made to
voyage again -- which is what it did.

How likely is it that an alien spacecraft could approach and dock with the
_Whorl_ without Mainframe and the Crew knowing about it? Even if the
Neighbors had FTL spaceships, how close would their hypothetical home planet
have to be for them to first detect the presence of the _Whorl_ then travel
to the Short Sun system, land on Green, pick up some wild inhumi and then
dock with the _Whorl_? Then they would have to take the inhumi back to Green
to spawn, all the while without being detected. I don't think it happened.

The implication I draw from the Neighbor's above statement is that the
Neighbors *do* live in some non-physical realm where humans literally (in
their current form) cannot go.

>system would have happened that early.

I think that the Neighbor's initial exposure to humans was by their version
of astral travel. Whenever the _Whorl_ first sent a lander to Green, the
Neighbors used it to send back sentient inhumi, grown from the humans on the
lander.

>are present on Green in their physical form.

Again, pure speculation, but the answer might be that wherever the Neighbors
live is the equivalent of wherever the inhumi are when, while astral
traveling, they are their "true", inner selves; truly human in the case of,
say, Jahlee, truly Neighborly in the cases of the Neighbors' inhumi. True
mirrors, in a sense.

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 09:01:55 +0000

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 23:46:36 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
<Snipped for brevity.>

Horn thinks about how Quetzal might have come to the Whorl, in OBW 
(pp182-3): "As with so many other riddles, it is easy to speculate 
but impossible to know which speculation is correct - if any are." 
That seems to sum up the situation pretty well :)

Anyway, Horn gives three possibilities: the Whorl's orbit brings it 
into conjunction with Green from time to time, allowing inhumi to 
fly there; landers left the Whorl "much earlier" than Auk's, 
unknown to the Crew, and perhaps even to Pas; inhumi built their 
own lander and sailed it to the Whorl. 

Mulling over the first possibility, he tries to work out what the 
period of Whorl/Green conjunctions might be. His baseline is his 
sure knowledge that Quetzal was prolocutor for 33 years. 

Now, in COTLS, Quetzal tells Silk he has known about Pas' supposed 
death for "thirty years, since shortly after his death, in fact" 
(p130 in Epiphany). So presumably Quetzal was already prolocutor a 
couple of years before Pas' death. 

Horn speculates that it would have taken Quetzal at least 15 years 
to work his way up the hierarchy & attain the prolocutorship. I 
don't know how good that estimate is, but assume it's roughly 
correct. Then if Quetzal did arrive on the Whorl on a lander, the 
Whorl must have been in orbit for more than 15 years before Pas' 
death. 

During that time, he didn't trigger the "Plan" and order everybody 
out; why not? A sensible seculation might be that he was studying 
Blue & Green, sending down scouting parties etc etc, before making 
the decision - presumably if the planers didn't check out he could 
set the Whorl on course for another star. This would fit well with 
the Quetzal-on-lander speculation. 

But then wouldn't the Crew be aware of the scouting? Why would Pas 
hide it from them? Silkhorn makes it clear in the Abanja passage in 
IGJ that he believes the Crew were not deliberately lying about 
Auk's lander being the first. And wouldn't Pas know then that Green 
wasn't a good destination, even if he didn't recognize the threat 
of the inhumi? But when the landers go, the passengers get not the 
slightest hint of what's down there - no maps, no nothing. If Pas 
had been spending time studying the planets, it certainly doesn't 
show.  

When he comes back to life, he orders everybody out almost 
immediately. I don't think he was alive whe the Whorl entered 
orbit. I think if he had been, he would have started chucking 
people out right away. Most likely, his family killed him as the 
Whorl approached the Short Sun system, to stop him from doing this. 

But if that's true, it puts Quetzal on the Whorl before it went 
into orbit, perhaps at around the same time as the Neighbors first 
"boarded" it, as it neared the Short Sun. 

Just quickly on Neighborly astral travelling: it might be different 
from what Silkhorn does, but I don't know of any reason to suppose 
so. The Neighbors Silkhorn encounters seem generally to be present 
in astral form - eg his first encounter, in OBW. Their sleeping 
bodies are presumably on "the Neighbor Whorl". The Neighbor who 
names it thus gazes towards the "Western stars" when he does so, 
which makes me think it is a "real" place, located amongst them. 

And on stealth Neighbor spacecraft: the Quetzal-on-lander 
hypothesis seems to require the Crew to be similarly ignorant of 
the pre-Exodus lander traffic the hypothesis requires.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 23:43:07 +0000

Thalassocrat wrote:
[snip]
>couple of years before Pas' death.

Is it just coincidence that Q's attainment of office more or less coincided
with the death of Pas? I doubt it. I'm not implying cause and effect, just
noting the correlation.

>had been spending time studying the planets, it certainly doesn't

But Silkhorn was also sure that landers *had* been sent out before Auk's.
Who cut that big cable down at the Pole? When did it happen, and why? Was
that the reason for Mainframe's and the Crew's ignorance of the comings and
goings?

[snip of stuff I can't refute] <g>

>which makes me think it is a "real" place, located amongst them.

Yes, but . . . the way it's phrased, "We found a way to leave and we left,
seeking a new and a better home." "Found a way" doesn't sound to me like
they just boarded their spaceships and went elsewhere. There would have been
nothing novel about that if they had had a high-tech civilization, which
they apparently once did, judging from the ruins on Green. I think there
must be something more to it.

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 20:43:49 +0000

I missed this start of this interesting thread, so I'll just stick my toe in
as I see an opening.

>Whorl approached the Short Sun system, to stop him from doing this.

*Pas* didn't do it "immediately". Silk and Auk did. It seems it took awhile
for before Pas went to extremes to drive people out. And then it was because
the Whorl was clearly suffering from an overpopulation of Cargo (running out
of water and such). Anyway if the prep work had already been done, it was
necessary to re-do it after Pas' resurrection. It would be understandable
that Pas' family waited for the last possible moment to rub him out rather
than as soon as they entered orbit.

>Auk's lander being the first.

I'm becoming exasperatingly convinced that the answer is not discernable
simply from the text. I suppose I'm coming around to Dan'l's position that
Wolfe has created several unresolvable puzzels. But I think the answer is
somewhere in that IMO when Silk sees "Pike's Ghost", it is the Rajan in
soul-traveling through time. There are plenty of clues that the Rajan *has*
time-traveled. In the LS (Lake I think) Silk saw a ghostly form of Oreb fly
from his window at a time that Oreb was unable to fly. In IGJ, the
grandmother tells a story from her childhood in which the Rajan and Oreb
make an appearance. And that description of Pike's ghost vanishing sure
looks more like *exactly* like soul travel to me.I realize this raises
uncomfortable questions about why Silk thought it was Pike he saw.

>And wouldn't Pas know then that Green

Returning to the scene of the "bird-legged man" the Rajan IIRC the way the
scene is written implies that the rock was always structure and the man was
always a tree(?), he just didn't notice it before (like looking at those ink
blots that are actually pictures of Jesus or George Washington).  That
suggests to me that the Neighbors are hiding in plain sight. Their "bodies"
are the trees. All the associations between the inhumi and the lianas is
because that is the form they took to feed on the Neighbors. The "war" they
describe was a very slow moving one. How does such a civilization create
altars, glass domes, and The Mother? I'm not certain. But then the Rajan
could form whatever he wanted out of thin air so who knows? How did they
"find a way to leave"? I don't know exactly but I think it has to do with
the arrival of the Whorl. The Rajan cannot go anywhere that one of his
fellow travelers has not been. Presumably, neither could the Neighbors. So
when they had access to the colonists, they could get to the Whorl and even
to Urth.

>with the death of Pas? I doubt it. I'm not implying cause and effect, just

!!
I don't think it is coincidental at all, and I think it is suggestive of who
Quetzal's mother fed on, but then I say the same about his Tussah's death
and Pas' death.
Oh, nevermind. It's like Silk said. No one will believe it.
;-)

J

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:36:32 +0000

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 23:42:55 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

>But Silkhorn was also sure that landers *had* been sent out before 

>Auk's.

Maybe: in this conversation with Abanja, Silkhorn is still thinking 
in the context of Horn's three hypotheses from OBW. He knows enough 
about the inhumi now to dismiss the hypothesis that they built a 
lander for themselves. Jahlee has just confirmed that the Whorl is 
too far from Green for inhumi to fly there. So by elimination he's 
left with the pre-Exodus lander hypothesis. It could be a 
conclusion he's come to *right now*. But this is before he 
discovers that the Neighbors were responsible; he's missing a 
hypothesis.

Seems consistent, anyway.

>that the reason for Mainframe's and the Crew's ignorance of the 

Excellent question! Isn't it the cable running from 
Mainframe/bridge back to the drive? In other words, a very major 
trunk. Pure speculation: Pas did it as he was being killed by his 
family, to prevent them from making the Whorl leave the SS system 
(or divert from it, if he's killed before insertion). 

>they just boarded their spaceships and went elsewhere. There would 

>have been
>nothing novel about that if they had had a high-tech civilization, 

>which
>they apparently once did, judging from the ruins on Green. I think 

>there

More speculation: it could just be that the Neighbors discovered 
(physical) FTL travel, something not available to the humans in the 
SS system. 

Actually, there's at least one big hole in the Neighbor-naut 
theory: if Neighbors have spacecraft in the SS system, why don't 
Silkhorn & party just beg a lift to the Whorl with them, at the end 
of RTTW? I guess there might be just one, which is travelling 
between the Neighbor Whorl & Green on a long journey at this point -
 but it all starts to look a little too thin for comfort :)

On the other hand, it's a consideration which also tends to rule 
out any magic matter-transfer ability for the Neighbors.

OK, so next unanswerable question: where do Talus-brains come from? 
In the long Talus factory scene in LS, we get a discussion of 
different head designs etc etc but nothing about this, which would 
seem to be the most crucial part of making a Talus. A guess: 
they're swiped from the stores which chems have access to for 
making chem babies, or more disturbingly, extracted from chem 
foetuses.

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 23:25:59 +0000

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 20:45:04 -0700 James Wynn 
<thewynns at earthlink.net> wrote:
>I missed this start of this interesting thread, so I'll just stick 

>my toe in
>of water and such). Anyway if the prep work had already been done, 

>it was

It was surely Pas doing the shoving, from the start. Tartaros 
reveals to Auk that unless they get at least one lander away, Pas 
is going to start kicking butt.

I'm not sure that it makes more sense for Echidna et al to wait 
until "the last minute" before offing Pas. In other posts in this 
thread, I've given reasons why I think it makes sense to assume 
that it happened before. Taking that one step further, maybe the 
Whorl has just entered orbit as LS begins. It could explain why the 
renewed theomachy begins at just this point; Pas has bided his time 
waiting for the moment when his Plan can go into effect. 

Maybe something like this: About 45-50 years out from the SS 
system, Pas commences some kind of early insertion manouevre 
(perhaps starting to decelerate). Until then, he hasn't given his 
family any specifics on the destination; now they realize the 
journey is coming to an end, and begin to plot. After 15 or so 
years, they are ready to pounce. They best Pas, but before he 
succumbs he cuts the main control cable, so they won't be able to 
divert the Whorl - whatever he has done before this is enough for a 
successful insertion. Thinking Pas truly dead, Echidna et al don't 
really mind the Whorl heading for orbit; they just want everybody 
to stay on it & continue to worship them.

Neighbors notice the approach of the Whorl at the beginning of its 
insertion manouevres. Somehow or other they board it & do their 
inhumi thing. (The rough coincidence in the timing of Pas' death 
and Quetzal's elevation is explained by the timing of the insertion 
manouevre, the various parties' responses to it, and the time for 
Pas' brood to perfect their plot & Quetzal to work his way up the 
hierarchy.)

In the not-very-plausible event that the Whorl's landers can travel 
between it and Green while it's traveling at relativistic speeds, 
perhaps the Neighbors enter the Whorl in astral form and induce 
humans to go in landers, returning human-charged inhumi to the 
Whorl. They use their Neighborish mojo to hide this activity from 
Pas and crew. 

In the scenario in which they have their own FTL spacecraft, which 
can plausibly renedezvous & dock with the decelerating Whorl, they 
use this same mojo to hide their own comings & goings with 
primitive & sentient inhumi.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:28:36 +0000

I want to get back to my original point in this thread. I wrote:

>>So, the question is: If Sinew was attacked by Jahlee during the first 2 or
3 years of colonization, before she was able to make the Crossing under her
own power, how did she get to Blue?<<

I still think the answer is that she traveled on a lander. But, on
reflection, that 2-3 year window of opportunity has to be even smaller. If
Jahlee was in fact imprinted with the spirit of Chenille, then one of her
parents would first have to have fed on Chenille. Then Jahlee's mother would
have to go through the breeding cycle on Green to produce a sentient Jahlee.
That takes some amount of time. Then Jahlee had to mature enough to be able
to fly up to that room on the cliff, an amount of time she said was "years".
And she still wasn't experienced enough to make the Crossing at that point.

Something's wrong. There isn't enough time. But it makes it pretty clear
that she didn't get to Blue unaided.

The problem is compounded by her own breeding cycle. After feeding on Sinew
she had to get back to Green to give birth to Krait. How did she get back?
Did she learn to fly well enough to make the Return Crossing while on Blue?
If so, did she learn before or after she attacked Sinew? How long after
feeding on a particular human's blood is the potential for imprinting that
person's spirit on any offspring viable? In other words, if Jahlee had fed
on another human after she fed on Sinew, would Krait have been somebody
else?

It matters because it affects how much time Jahlee could have spent on Blue
before she had to get back to Green to become Krait's mother. I don't see
her coming to Blue on a lander, then learning how to fly properly before
attacking Sinew. I think she must have traveled both ways by lander.

The question then becomes, Did she board a lander to come to Blue, at a time
when she knew she was incapable of flying between planets, for her own
reasons? Or did someone(s) *put* her aboard a lander, presumably on Green,
for reasons unknown?

I don't think Jahlee was just 'talking human' when she told Abanja, "I was
just a little girl when they put me on the lander." And if the idea of a
lander going from Green to Blue, as Jahlee implied, was a surprise to
Abanja, she failed to show it.

I'm still missing something here.

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:59:51 +0000

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:28:26 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>Jahlee was in fact imprinted with the spirit of Chenille, then one 

>of her
>Something's wrong. There isn't enough time. But it makes it pretty 

>clear
>The problem is compounded by her own breeding cycle. After feeding 

>on Sinew
>Did she learn to fly well enough to make the Return Crossing while 

>on Blue?
>person's spirit on any offspring viable? In other words, if Jahlee 

>had fed
>The question then becomes, Did she board a lander to come to Blue, 

>at a time
>when she knew she was incapable of flying between planets, for her 

>own
>lander going from Green to Blue, as Jahlee implied, was a surprise 

>to

An atempt at a timeline. Don't have the books with me so this is 
all from memory & so no doubt wrong in places:

1. Green/Blue conjunctions happen every 6 Blue years (see Horn's 
Quetzal speculations in OBW). I think this means that 7 Green years 
= 6 Blue years. Green is hotter, therefore probably closer to the 
sun, therefore has a shorter year. But the difference doesn't seem 
to be very great, and this ratio seems to fit with eg Abanja's "25 
[Green] years".

2. As OBW begins the next conjunction is 2 [?] years off - see Horn 
family discussion about guns etc after Marrow et al depart. 

3. So setting year 0 = Horn's arrival on Blue, OBW starts in Blue 
year 20. So conjunctions should happen in years 4, 10, 16 & 22. 

4. Inhumi cross from Blue to Green at conjunction. Now I don't 
recall anything explicitly saying it was conjunction-time when 
Jahlee attacked Sinew, but assume so for testing: ie, Blue year 4. 

5. It probably doesn't takle more than a few days for inhumi to 
make the crossing. Disregarding her age for the moment, at a pinch 
Jahlee could have left Green, somehow or other stumbled across 
Horn's family & made the return to give birth to Sinew, all in Blue 
year 4.

6. Four Blue years is around 5 Green years. If inhumi spawn and 
mature very quickly (like frogs?), this may give just enough time 
for Jahlee's parent to take the blood of one of Auk's party on 
green, and for Jahlee to spend "years" getting strong enough to 
make the crossing. Is there anything in the story Fava tells at the 
beginning of IGJ which might give more of a clue about how long it 
takes inhumi to mature?

7. There's perhaps a little more time if Jahlee's parent/s was/were 
actually amongst Auk's party, ready to spawn upon landing. I don't 
think we ever get to hear very much about most of Auk's companions; 
I wonder if there's any hints of inhuminity in what we do hear?

8. But on the other hand, there's an added time constraint not 
discussed so far. Jahlee as a child has heard about crossing to 
Blue from others, who presumably must have made the return trip.

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 06:01:31 +0000

>Jahlee attacked Sinew, but assume so for testing: ie, Blue year 4. 

Actually, it looks like that's where this doesn't work. When Krait 
is dying on Green, and tells Horn the Big Secret, Horn says he 
understands what had happened "almost twenty years ago" (IGJ p82). 
Those have to be Blue years, I think. This scene almost certainly 
takes place in about the 21st (or at most, 22nd) year since Horn 
landed. Blue year 2 looks like the latest for Jahlee's attack; 
"almost twenty" has to imply "more than 19", IMO.

As added support for an early date: Silkhorn's vision of the 
attack, near the beginning of RTTW, displays none of the stormy 
weather associated with conjunction; and other comments make it 
almost certain that they are coming up to just their second winter 
on Blue. 

It looks like Jahlee is their on Lizard before conjunction, and in 
any case at much too young an age to have flown there.

>takes inhumi to mature?

Reading Fava's story, I get the impression that inhumi do mature 
quickly, in the sense that an inhuma could mimic a "little girl" 
not long after birth.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:33:41 +0000

>that she didn't get to Blue unaided....I'm still missing something here.

That's the problem with the whole timeline for SS. Sinew's kids seem too old
(*maybe* they could *just* fit in the timeline, but I don't think so). At
the end of RTTW, Hoof says his dad has been gone 3 years, while Hide earlier
said it was 2. And, although, I can't remember exactly where it is, I *do*
recall something that made me think Sinew was born more than 9 months after
the landing.

However, in this case, if one assumes that Inhumi require only a year to
mature (like rats), then it is not impossible for Jahlee to board a lander
and fly to Blue in plenty of time to feed on Sinew.

>...I think she must have traveled both ways by lander.

I think you are right. Since it took years for her to learn to fly to the
top of the cliff, then she could not have flown to Blue on her own the first
time. Anyway, she wouldn't have needed the lander if she had (and I agree
she boarded a lander posing as a little girl). Soooo she had to take a
lander back to Green where she would then learn to fly for her journey back
to Blue (with plenty of time, no?).

Taking a lander both ways cuts out any need for the wait for Green's close
approach.

>on another human after she fed on Sinew, would Krait have been somebody

That's an excellent question and I don't know the answer. Do inhuma make the
journey when they are pregnant? Are they impregnated on Blue or when they
return to Green? Or before leaving Green? The answer would vary depending on
which is true.

And I can't remember the explanaiton if there was one of why male inhumi
make the dangerous flight to Blue.

>Or did someone(s) *put* her aboard a lander, presumably on Green,
>for reasons unknown?

Why *wouldn't* she board a lander to Blue if she wanted ensouled children
but could not fly there herself?

J

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 22:46:44 +0000

[snip]

>Taking a lander both ways cuts out any need for the wait for Green's close

Well, well, we three seem to be in agreement that Jahlee didn't get to Blue
unaided when she was very young. Do you also agree, Andrew, that she
traveled by lander between Green and Blue?

>Blue from others, who presumably must have made the return trip.

Now that's a problem. Not for Jahlee's personal timeline, but in general.
Landers can't account for the Crossing stories she heard. Assuming Wolfe
just didn't make a mistake, that would require a pool of sentient inhumi in
place on Green *before* Auk's lander arrived, inhumi who had made the trip
during a conjunction prior to the exodus. Who might those sentient inhumi
have fed on? Worse, there would have to have been people on Blue for them to
feed on, otherwise they would have been making a very dangerous trip for no
reason.

I know of no textual evidence or justification for believing there were any
humans on Blue before Horn's lander put down. Something stinks.

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 04:49:43 +0000

>humans on Blue before Horn's lander put down. Something stinks.

Since Quetzal was on the lander, we know there were likely sentient inhumi
on Green. Wolfe has *said* Quetzal was not the only inhumi on the Whorl. His
existence shows that the inhumi had on the Whorl for at least forty years
and would be well ensconced among the Cargo. In fact, they probably brought
a few with them both to Blue and to Green (perhaps even on Auk's lander).
Sooo...it is reasonable to presume that the sentient inhumi on Green would
have heard about landers arriving at Blue.

I think I'm missing an important facet of your question.

Why the heck did the Neighbors use inhumi to "study" humans anyway? They
would permit them to study human souls. But for what purpose? What useful
knowledge did they gain from such experiments?

J

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 07:24:36 +0000

Roy asks:

>Do you also agree, Andrew, that 
>she

Maybe! A difficulty is that in Silkhorn's vision of her attacking 
infant Sinew, she seems more like a starving adult than a "little 
girl". RTTW p27: "The inhuma came, a bent and haggard figure that 
was not a woman ... She recalled Jahlee ... a ragged, painfully 
thin figure with famished eyes ..."  It's possible I guess that 
Jahlee at the age of less than two (?) could look like that, but 
.... 

The description makes it seem like she's been hungry for a *long* 
time, and really it reminds me of the adult Jahlee, just after 
she's been disinterred in Gaon. 

Anyway, I need to mull over this some more. 

Part of the problem is that Jahlee has every reason to hide or lie 
about things which happened around the time of her attack on Sinew. 
she surely doesn't want Silkhorn to guess the truth (he has, by the 
start of RTTW, but she doesn't know it).

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 20:06:47 +0000

I wrote
>Anyway, I need to mull over this some more. 

Mulling outcomes:

Some of the Jahlee problems go away if you can push her birth back 
to pre-Exodus times. That's easy enough, by itself. I continue to 
believe that the Neighbors must have been using Green as the 
spawning ground for the inhumi they placed on the Whorl. If Jahlee 
is a result of this program, she could have been born many years 
pre-Exodus, spent years learning to fly, crossed to Blue at a pre-
Exodus conjunction, eventually stumbled on Horn's family, and flown 
back to Green, perhaps invigorated by Sinew's blood.

Objections:

Why would she make a pre-Exodus Crossing, without the prospect of 
human prey? A straightforward reading of her comments in the cliff 
tower scene is that inhumi aspire to fly to Blue so that they can 
hunt humans, and give birth to sentient children when they return.

But it is possible the aspiration to make the Crossing isn't simply 
a matter of wanting to go where there is less competition for human 
blood. "That little scratch of fire, and you're gone forever. I 
wanted to try just the same. We all do ... It's something we get 
from you, a need to become more & more like you, until we're as 
human as we can possibly be." 

Why would going to Blue to prey on humans meet a need to become 
more human-like? Why not prey on humans on green, if preying on 
humans is the point? 

Are inhumi really ready to give birth at the age of two or three? 
Of course it's possible - we know very very little about them. But 
still ... in the cliff tower scene, Jahlee makes it sound to me as 
if she has a lot of growing up to do before she will be ready. And 
if she is ready, and there are humans on Green at this point, then 
why not with blood from one of them? Perhaps there aren't very many 
humans, and competition is fierce - but is it really *so* difficult 
to get access to a human on Green that the hugely risky alternative 
of a Crossing becomes attractive? 

I think that the Crossing may be more of a rite of passage; 
something a sentient inhuma might aspire to even without the lure 
of human blood as a reward. And when she says she was thinking 
about flying up to the top of the tower before she had decided to 
hunt Blue, we have to remember that of course inhumi do not prey 
only on humans. If competition is such a big problem, would it not 
also apply to other kinds of prey - so that Blue becomes an 
attractive hunting ground, with or without humans?

The final difficulty with this piece & my theory is bound up in her 
comment that she had day-dreams of returning to the tower room 
after making the Return Crossing, to spend time there thinking 
about herself and "what she had done for her children". Why should 
a Crossing & return do anything in particular for her children, if 
there is no human blood involved? 

Dunno! I can speculate that it may have something to do with how 
Neighbors select sentient inhumi for placing on the Whorl - the 
"most human" and the strongest, who have made the Crossing & 
Return. In the absence of humans elsewhere, being slected would be 
the only way of ensuring sentient children. But Jahlee disclaims 
any knowledge about how Quetzal got to the Whorl. She could be 
lying, for reasons which can be invented upon request :) 

Jahlee's comments about being just a little girl when she was "put 
on the lander" on Green: I don't mind sticking with my original 
reading, that she's just pretending here.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 22:12:05 +0000

>I think I'm missing an important facet of your question.

No, I think I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. Horn's lander(s) left the
_Whorl_ just days after Auk's. If Andrew is anywhere near right about a
conjunction in or about Blue year 2, then I suppose it's possible that
sentient inhumi (fed on Auk's party) could have made the trip to and from
Blue with sufficient time left over for a young Jahlee to have heard them
talking about it. It just makes that window of opportunity for Jahlee to
feed on Sinew smaller and smaller.

>knowledge did they gain from such experiments?

Well, if nothing else, it gave them One-Hour-Photo snapshot versions of what
humans were really like. But that doesn't really answer the question. At
least I hope it doesn't. The Neighbors may have had a proprietary interest
in strangers coming to their Blue-Green system, but who put them on a moral
high-horse?

-Roy

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 22:13:34 +0000

>she's been disinterred in Gaon.

But it's just a dream and can't be taken at face value. Silkhorn also saw
Sinew wearing a ring in that dream that I don't think had really been there.
Silkhorn's subconscious is at work in the dream, putting together the clues
about Jahlee, Sinew and Krait. At the time Sinew was attacked, Silk was back
in Viron and Horn was out on the beach with Nettle. Neither component of
Silkhorn had any real knowledge of the details of the attack. It's all
imagination.

Or are you suggesting something more . . . supernatural?

-Roy

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 23:36:53 +0000

>back to Green, perhaps invigorated by Sinew's blood.

An objection I have is her presumed imprinting with Chenille's spirit. I
don't think her mother(?) fed on Chenille on the _Whorl_.

>more human-like?
[snip]

Jahlee expressed similar sentiments on her death bed, a time when she had
nothing to gain or lose by lying.

I keep thinking of Tennyson's "Ulysses". I won't presume to quote it, but I
can see (or think I do) so much resonance with _Short Sun_. Recall it, or
read it again is all I can ask. I first thought about it when you reminded
me about the Neighbor looking toward "the western stars" when speaking of
his new home. Maybe I'm just getting to be an old fool, but that's my
answer. The poem also puts me in mind of Silk's return to the _Whorl_ at the
end of RTTW.

-Roy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 05:07:39 +0000

>don't think her mother(?) fed on Chenille on the _Whorl_.

I'm not wedded to Chenille as Jahlee's soul parent. In fact, J 
seems much more umm regal (in her demon-whore kind of way) than 
Chenille. She also doesn't seem to have any recognition of 
Chenille. But who knows ...

>nothing to gain or lose by lying.

Sorry - don't understand this one???

>can see (or think I do) so much resonance with _Short Sun_. Recall 

>it, or
>his new home. Maybe I'm just getting to be an old fool, but that's 

>my

I can see what you mean with this, but the ending of RTTW is to me 
more triumphant & less elegaic than Ulysses. I take away an image 
of Silkhorn sailing thru the galaxy spreading justice & good stuff, 
not going to meet some heroic end.  

Also: Silkhorn just isn't that old, surely. Mid/late forties? But 
he's described as if he's some raddled ancient. I don't really 
understand this. I mean, presumably he's never even had to sit thru 
an all day strategy "brain-storming" session or go entertain 
potential clients who don't speak English or do any of the stuff 
which makes me feel raddled & ancient :) 

The Neighbors, though, are definitely elegaic, and I don't hate the 
idea of them dwelling in some Neighborish Elysium beyond the world. 
It's just not my preferred view of what's going on.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:58:03 +0000

>Sorry - don't understand this one???

Oh, I was referring to your speculations about "Why would going to Blue to
prey on humans meet a need to become more human-like?"  And Jahlee's
"day-dreams of returning to the tower room after making the Return Crossing,
to spend time there thinking about herself and 'what she had done for her
children.'"

When dying she said, "You think we don't care . . . ." [. . .] "You do, so
we must."

Silkhorn thought she was speaking about her children, and went on to explain
to Nettle, "To pass among us, they imitate us -- even our emotions. Most of
their spawn are eaten by fish while they are still very young." Jahlee then
gave her version of the Secret, and almost the last thing she said was,
"Krait was my son, the only one who lived with the mind it took from yours."

Presumably she was expressing, and feeling, the inherited human emotion of
grief for her lost children, particularly the loss of her only son. Nettle's
firstborn was also effectively lost to her, to say nothing of her husband.
Jahlee had attacked Nettle not because of a need to feed, but because of the
human emotion of female jealousy. At the same time, she felt empathy with
Nettle, which is why she did what she could as she died to balance the score
by revealing to Nettle the Secret, something she knew Silkhorn wouldn't do.

It was the last entry Silkhorn himself made in his book, which should give
his opinion here more weight than elsewhere.

-Roy