# Silk Circles Edition 2 *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 04 Dec 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. --- ### Patri10629 *04 Dec 1998, 01:53* Curious further adventures in cheek rubbing.... From EXODUS FROM THE LONG SUN, CHAPTER 1 (HARDCOVER), PG 21: (Mint and Remora discover Councillor Potto's body at Bloods.) "Gently at first, then with increased vigor, Maytera Mint rubbed the councillor's cheek. 'This is a chem!'" Love that: "increased vigor." But why? Why does the cheek reveal the artificial body? Why not the arm, the hand, the ear, or whatever? And why o why does rubbing it do the trick? Is Silk, when he habitually repeats this gesture, questioning his own nature? Patrick O'Leary Patrick O'Leary's Home Page *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ---