# Teleporting inhumi *The Whorl list — 7 messages, 4 voices, 20 Apr 2001* > 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. --- ### Nicholas Gevers *20 Apr 2001, 18:44* Patera Nutria: no, I don't think the inhumi are teleporting from Green to Blue and then back again. If that were the case, Blue would be infested with them to a far greater degree than it is. I stick by my hypothesis, which is simply that the inhumi have been given a passive astral travel capacity, activatable only if a biological or honorary Neighbour is also present. This makes perfect sense textually; and teleportation adds nothing to my explanation of the Secret, the first explanation which is both fully accountable to the text and a sensible adumbration of the Secret as an offensive weapon. --Nick Gevers. --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *20 Apr 2001, 12:10 · follows Nicholas Gevers* > Patera Nutria: no, I don't think the inhumi are > teleporting from Green to Blue and then back again. Although it _does_ offer us with yet another possible image for what the inhumi look like in their "natural" state -- lime green humanoids with antennae... who's willing to bet that none of you has a clue what this was about... *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### Kevin J. Maroney *20 Apr 2001, 16:01 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* > At 12:10 PM 4/20/01 -0700, Blattid wrote: > Although it _does_ offer us with yet another possible > image for what the inhumi look like in their "natural" > state -- lime green humanoids with antennae... Sounds like the Great Gazoo to me. ``` Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction http://www.nyrsf.com *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *20 Apr 2001, 13:21 · follows Kevin J. Maroney* > Sounds like the Great Gazoo to me. Swish! One up, one away... *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### James Jordan *20 Apr 2001, 16:26 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* N. Gevers objected to my mooted tweak of his proposal: > Patera Nutria: no, I don't think the inhumi are > teleporting from Green to Blue and then back again. If > that were the case, Blue would be infested with them > to a far greater degree than it is. I stick by my > hypothesis, which is simply that the inhumi have been > given a passive astral travel capacity, activatable > only if a biological or honorary Neighbour is also > present. This makes perfect sense textually; and > teleportation adds nothing to my explanation of the > Secret, the first explanation which is both fully > ^^^^ ^^^^ > accountable to the text and a sensible adumbration of > ^^^^^^ > the Secret as an offensive weapon. Nothing humble about you, Nick! ;-) Yeah, I don't suppose my thought adds to the Secret, but I'm not sure (yet) that I'm wrong. If inhumi can only teleport (on my supposition) in the presence of others who've been to Blue and returned, perhaps not that many would have made the trip. And after all, there are lots of humans on Green. I agree with the other objection that there does not seem to be any indication in the text for my hypothesis. Problem is, since flying through space is out of the question, where is there any indication of anything else at all? But back to your thesis. You're saying only Narrator can do astral travel, not just any human, because of his Neighborliness. Well, is it the ring? I'm not going to search 1000+ pages to find the allusions to the ring, but as I recall Horn left the first ring on Green with his corpse. But then he gets another. Is it the ring? And if so, maybe it's not inhumi + Neighbor that enables the travel, but inhumi + ring. And how about magic rings in traditional literature? I like your thesis, since it integrates the astral travel business with the nature of the inhumi. Nutria *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. --- ### Kevin J. Maroney *20 Apr 2001, 17:44 · follows James Jordan* > At 04:26 PM 4/20/01 -0500, Nutria wrote: > But back to your thesis. You're saying only Narrator can do astral > travel, not just any human, because of his Neighborliness. I wondered about that. Do Horn's sons ever initiate travel on their own? If not, then I've already given a reason why the Narrator would have a Neighborly ability that no other human has--his life was completely remolded by the Neighbors' magic/science in a way that no other human's was. ``` Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction http://www.nyrsf.com *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *20 Apr 2001, 16:33 · follows Kevin J. Maroney* Say... doesn't the astral travelling only begin after Oreb brings the Narr back the ring? -----Original Message----- From: Kevin J. Maroney [mailto:kmaroney at ungames.com] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 2:45 PM To: whorl at lists1.ba.best.com Subject: Re: (whorl) Teleporting inhumi > At 04:26 PM 4/20/01 -0500, Nutria wrote: > But back to your thesis. You're saying only Narrator can do astral > travel, not just any human, because of his Neighborliness. I wondered about that. Do Horn's sons ever initiate travel on their own? If not, then I've already given a reason why the Narrator would have a Neighborly ability that no other human has--his life was completely remolded by the Neighbors' magic/science in a way that no other human's was. ``` Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction http://www.nyrsf.com *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` ---