# Fifth Head and Baldanders *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 05 Apr 1998* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Dan Rabin *05 Apr 1998, 23:28* Baldanders and the family portrayed in _Fifth Head_ seem to have a lot in common, thematically. They maintain laboratories, seek knowledge, and hope to lift themselves above the common lot thereby. Both experiment on their own bodies (or clones) in pursuit of the quest. Both are frustrated that their labors bear no fruit. I can't find the citation right now, but I recall a comment that Baldanders has cut himself off from the line that leads back to the Increate. He claims himself as his greatest, and only great work. Self-created, not self-ruler (autarch). About the number of heads, I accept Robert Borski's persuasive scheme, but if we count the original and Mr. Million as the same head, then the child at the end could be the fifth. -- Dan Rabin ---