I'm replying to a number of points at once--a local mail problem resulted in me getting today in "digest" mode, all arriving in about five seconds.
1. Wolfe clearly DOES want us to have thoughts about Silk and Horn being somehow combined. The "caught the ball" line is too haunting and explicit for any other possibility. What's going on is anybody's guess (Sev./Thecla-ish with Silk's personality mostly buried, perhaps?)
2. Seawrack is a human, not a Neighbor. Her mother drowned and "Mother" rescued her for (probably) devious purposes.
3. Dave Lebling summed up the theory I'm supporting as to what the inhumi's secret is far better than I've managed to thus far.
4. The neighbors "other place" seems to be something metaphysical or Shadow- like, not just another planet they've moved to en masse.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department 8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.