# #5 vs VRT *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 17 Jun 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. --- ### Alice Turner *17 Jun 1998, 11:43* Tony Ellis, >> So we've actually seen how an abo or half-abo came to impersonate (or >> merge >> with) a human, and the way he did was imperfectly. So imperfectly that #5 >> sees through it (though I'm damned if I know how). I've never thought that #5 sees through VRT's impersonation. I've always assumed that he was just being offensive. As he says: "I had come to kill my father, and it was necessary that Dr Marsch leave." The fact that by a million-to-one chance he hits on the truth would be just typical Wolfe. I have no clever proof of this, except for your own point that that there doesn't seem to be any way that #5 _could_ have seen through Marsch's impression. But wouldn't he have been at least a little bit excited if he really thought he was sitting next to an abo? That's exactly what I thought too--that he was merely being offensive--until I started trying to put together a case, and then the coincidence just seemed too much. Absolutely the only clue that I can see is the eyes, and how would #5 know about that? As for being excited, he was certainly excited earlier when he thought he was talking to an Earth scientist. Beats me! -alga- ---