{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/700", "note": "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.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 700, "subject": "Handwriting", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "1998-06-01T21:21:00+00:00", "last": "1998-06-01T21:21:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-06-01T21:21:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Handwriting", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam,\n\nFWIW I agree with you that the initial reason for the officer to\nsuddenly stop reading the \"Marsch Journal\" and look back at the\nbeginning of \"V.R.T. Schoolbook\" is that he is comparing the bad\nhandwriting and finding it the same.\n\nHowever, there are two other items:\n\nI think Robert Borski is probably on to something, in the way that\nthe two texts relate to each other beyond the handwriting issue.\nThis might be the \"next level\" of meaning and is probably beyond the\nofficer's awareness.\n\nNext, I'm not sure in my mind exactly how V.R.T. killed Marsch, or on\nwhat day it happened.\n\nGranted, the easy answer is that the entry explaining the \"absurd\naccident\" with the cat--entry \"April 23\" (Ace p. 259) makes it seem\nthat the murder happened on April 22 (Easter Sunday 1973; 5HC first\npublished 1972).\n\nBut the ballistics table on the flyleaf of the book is for both the\nheavy rifle and a long range shot. The implication for murder being\nthat V.R.T. must have the .35 caliber rifle (which Marsch almost\nalways has, and since he has it in his seemingly last entry for April\n21, if V.R.T. were to shoot him in the tree he would be using the\nlight rifle) and there must be some distance (that is, the table won't\nwork for the light rifle at all, and the light rifle won't give a\nlikely one-shot kill in any event).\n\nWe also know that the entries for April 22 through 26 were written on\nJune 1, fwiw. We cannot be certain how dilligent Marsch was in\nkeeping his journal since the officer jumps around in it: we have\nApril 15 (p. 247), April 16 (p. 247), and April 21 (p. 251), a\npossible lapse of five days.\n\nOkay, so we assume the April 21 entries are the last of Marsch. He\nwas killed sometime after that. But the last part of that entry, the\npart about V.R.T. being uncircumsised and that he will kill them,\nseems so bizarre and unlike Marsch (and so much like the fantasies of\nV.R.T. to come later in the journal) that it makes me wonder.\n\nTrue, it could be just that the strain is making Marsch crack, and he\nis so far cracked that he is writing it down. While up in a tree.\nWith a heavy rifle. Waiting for big game.\n\nBut if we back up a bit, to that stuff about the heavy rifle? It\nturns out that Marsch did have the light rifle on April 12, and V.R.T.\ndid have the heavy rifle, and they were separated by some distance.\nThe events went like this: Marsch woke up, found the boy washing\nhimself in the river, obviously having \"been with a woman\" (according\nto Marsch); then suddenly there was a roaring, so Marsch grabbed the\nlight rifle and ran off to fire it at the ghoul-bear; the ghoul-bear,\nonly wounded, ran off; Marsch plans to alternate with the boy standing\nwatch through the night with the heavy rifle.\n\nOkay, =finally= the boy has the big gun. He could conceivably have\nshot Marsch as Marsch stood there shooting the ghoul-bear at\npoint-blank; if not then, he has ample opportunity to shoot Marsh at\npoint-blank range in the night. (If they keep the same security\nroutine later, he could do the same at a later time.)\n\n(We should probably sift through the wild fantasy of \"A Story\" for\nclues as to how and when the murder took place--easy answer would be\nthat it happened on the banks of the river with a confusion of killer\nand victim, similar to the scene where \"Marsch\" sees \"V.R.T.\" washing\nhimself in the river on April 12.)\n\nYet if V.R.T. killed on April 12, then why (you may be wondering) is\nthe handwriting so good until June 1? (I.e., good handwriting for\nApril 15, 16, and 21--bad handwriting seems to start Jun 1 with the\nApril 22 entry.)\n\nThe answer =might= be that V.R.T. has succeeded in copying Marsch\n(note how he is copying Marsch's speech patterns in April 16; and yes,\nI'm willing to suppose that V.R.T. is \"talking to himself\" at this\npoint) so successfully that he is identical, a \"clone\" (the Veil's\nTheory thing again). He =can= write exactly like Marsch. But his\ncontrol starts to slip--either because he is only \"half\" abo, or\nbecause even abos can't do it forever, or because abos have to mirror\na living subject, or I don't know why--and by June his handwriting\nhas regressed to the level of his schoolbook.\n\nI am full aware that this is highly speculative.\n\nI also wonder if the caribou critter they shot was an abo--that\n\"double pupil\" eye thing to me smacks of lycanthropy, as if the thing\nis trying to shift again but is halted mid-process by death.\n\nRe: conservation of matter as a reason why the cat cannot be a girl.\nIsn't this a valid argument =only= if the density of the matter\nremains the same? (Here hold this teaspoon full of neutron\nstar--don't worry, it's only a teaspoon worth.) If somebody tried to\npick up the cat . . . ah, but you say that Marsch did pick up the cat\n. . . but no, even by the easy reading, the \"Marsch picked up the cat\nto show where he shot the tiger\" scene was a fabrication by\nV.R.T./Marsch.\n\nCan I say now that the \"new prisoner\" being brought in (p. 251), the\nfat middle-aged guy, is the bewildered sf author G.R.W.\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }