Subject: RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the Inhumi !

From: Urash, Tom <turash at firstam.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 12:51:40 +0000

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jim Henley [SMTP:jhenley at nas-corp.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, January 11, 2000 12:42 PM
> To:	whorl at lists.best.com
> Subject:	(whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the
> Inhumi! (Maybe...)
> 
> They're cold-blooded. And they hibernate.
> 
> Best,
> 
> 
> Jim
> 
> P.S. Do I need a Whorl name now? I'm thinking "Plasma"...
> 
	Great guess! Do you have any text to support it? 

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---

From: Urash, Tom <turash at firstam.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 16:21:03 +0000

> Sent:	Tuesday, January 11, 2000 3:19 PM
> Subject:	RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the
> Inhumi	! (Maybe...)
> 
> 
> I think so, Tom. Happily, David Liebling already gathered most of it for
> me
> (http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/archives/#59) so I hope I can be permitted
> to
> merely summarize.
> 
> 1) all the reptilian imagery used to describe Krait et al. Not least,
> "It's
> just occurred to me that you inhumi are rather like a kind of
> lizard I've noticed in my garden..."
> 
> IIRC, the Rajan uses a lot of snake figuration to describe Krait at the
> pit.
> 
> 2) It explains why the Rajan expects to find Jahlee alive under the stone
> -
> he knows that they can slow their metabolism in unfavorable conditions.
> 
> 3) Green is full of jungles and dinosaurs. I infer that it is warmer than
> Blue. I'm inclined to think that the Rajan even describes it as warmer,
> but
> I could be misremembering. (One other thought: cross-reference jungles,
> dinosaurs, swamps and hot green planets in The Big Book of Science Fiction
> Tropes and you find the entry for - Venus.)
> 
> 4) They must be able to essentially shut down their metabolism on the
> trajectory from Green to Blue. And it could be that it's the heat of early
> reentry that revives them.
> 
> 5) It's a perhaps slightly more practical secret to have than, "Hey, if we
> start loving each other, you guys are dead meat!"

	 Thanks for the listing, Plasma! I couldn't agree with you more (#5,
above): the "love your neighbor" angle always struck me as down right silly,
naive and extremely over simple for Wolfe. Every time I see it I'm reminded
of Rodney King's feeble "can't we all just get along?" plea during the L.A.
riots. I'm curious to know if anyone recalls old Quetzal having any
behaviors or allusions to support the cold-blooded/hibernation theory(?).
Right or wrong, this theory is my favorite among all others espoused in this
list so far.

---

From: Josh Levitan <josh_levitan at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 00:51:36 +0000

Been lurking for a while.  First post to the list.  Hopefully it's not too 
moronic.

Thoughts on inhumi hibernating and whether or not this is The Secret  --

Jim Henley wrote:

>3) Green is full of jungles and dinosaurs. I infer that it is warmer >than
>Blue. I'm inclined to think that the Rajan even describes it as >warmer, 
>but
>I could be misremembering. (One other thought: cross-reference >jungles,
>dinosaurs, swamps and hot green planets in The Big Book of Science >Fiction

>trajectory from Green to Blue. And it could be that it's the heat of >early

>5) It's a perhaps slightly more practical secret to have than, "Hey, >if we

Like Alga was saying, it's a good idea, and seems rather obvious.  However, 
how would this translate into a secret that would destroy the inhumi?  After 
all, when the Rajan begins telling the secret to the inhumi, they are afraid 
of him acting on it, including Jahlee who just came out of hibernation (and 
didn't seem that much worse for the wear after only getting a little 
cowblood in her system).  And, the gardener and Evensong are there when she 
does come out of hibernation, and I believe that the Rajan sends them away 
before telling the secret.  Also, this doesn't really work with the Rajan's 
comment that they would be nothing more than dumb animals, no more harmful 
than crocodiles...  So that doesn't fit.  I think a slightly better 
interpretation than this theory would be that they require a certain amount 
of warmth or sunlight for energy, like dimetrodons or iguanas, however I 
don't really see how the colonists could act on that in response to the 
entire population of inhumi.

I have a feeling that Wolfe's given us enough info to figure out what the 
secret is currently.  It reminds me of that Borges story, "The Mystery of 
The Phoenix(?)" (something like that) in Ficciones, where he talks around 
the secret rite of the cult of the Phoenix and supposedly gives enough info 
to figure out what the rite is (although I've always been too dense to 
figure it out).  Anybody read OBW more than once yet and have another guess 
other than the hibernating/you-are-what-you-eat/do unto others guesses?

The Venus thing is an interesting guess.  Perhaps, through the relativistic 
effects of vast interstellar travel over the three hundred years or so the 
ship was in transit (if I'm remembering correctly), it did manage to do a 
boomerang/Planet of the Apes deal and head back to Urth after the new sun 
arrived, encountering a flooded Urth (which fits with New Sun) and a green 
Venus.  However, what happened to the remaining seven planets?

Josh, who hasn't thought of a Vironese name yet...  Suggestions?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

---

From: Jim Henley <jhenley at nas-corp.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 08:42:35 +0000

> From: Josh Levitan [mailto:josh_levitan at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2000 7:52 PM
>
> figure it out).

Well, I haven't figured it out yet either, so if anyone wants to do a
"Borges spoiler," I'm all for it.

More on the cold-blooded inhumi in another message. Meanwhile,

> Venus.  However, what happened to the remaining seven planets?

Ah. They're still there? I say this because the little glossary at the
beginning of the book specifically refers to Blue as "the better of the
_habitable_ planets of the Short Sun system" and Green as "the worse of the
_habitable_ planets." My emphasis, but the word appears in each entry,
strongly suggesting that the SS system includes _inhabitable_ planets as
well.

The one I'm left wondering about is Mars/Verdanthi. Too far away to be
noticed? No longer habitable? Kicked into too eccentric an orbit by the
passing of the New Sun?

Or are Blue and Green not Ushas and Skuld after all?

Best,

Jim

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---

From: Jim Henley <jhenley at nas-corp.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 08:57:55 +0000

> From: Jim Jordan [mailto:jbjordan at gnt.net]
> Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2000 6:40 PM
>
> I still say that the secret (probably) is that when humans
> learn to live
> with each other in love and charity (not enslaving one another, for
> instance), the inhumi will follow suit, being imitators of
> humanity. That's
> why Quetzal is ambiguous, because he learned from Patera Pike.

But if this is the secret, then why doesn't Jahlee burst out laughing when
threatened with it? At that very minute she is being presented with _deeds_
showing just how far humans are from accomplishing such - the Rajan is
preparing to use the inhumi to prey on his human enemies.

No, whatever "the secret" is, it's got to be a darn sight more - _do-able_,
as they say.

Best,

Jim

---

From: William H. Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 23:17:52 +0000

>No, whatever "the secret" is, it's got to be a darn sight more - _do-able_,

I agree. In fact I posted a message along much the same lines last
November. Although the message is long, I am going to quote almost all of
it, because it contains most of the passges from OBW that are relevant to
this discussion. My take on the secret of the inhumi is at the end of the
quoted material, below.

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: (whorl) The secret of the inhumi, again
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 01:16:10 -0500

"Roberson, John" <RobersonJ at bek.com> wrote:

[...]

>	Also, does anyone care to speculate about the secret of the inhumu?
>It would seem that their chameleon-like body-shaping goes even further to
>imitating the intelligence and anger/hatred of man for them and other men.
>There is a passage to the effect that if humans would only be more caring,
>then the inhumu would revert back to beasts in the jungle.  Also, Krait
>becomes more like Horn and Horn's son as Horn begins relating to him as his
>son by proxy.  If people only loved one another, does this mean that inhumu
>would be unable to prey on them and eventually slink back into the jungles
>of Green?  It would appear in the Long Sun series that Quetzal absorbed some
>of the benign aspects of their religion while masquerading as a human and
>Prolocutor.
>

As a matter of fact, I would. There has been some discussion of this
already, which you can find on the archives, too. I have been meaning to
post about this, because I don't completely agree with what has already
been said on the subject.

I will quote the relevant postings below (I have inserted an additional
"Horn's hint" in among those in Dave Lebling's list. By the way Dave,
thanks for all the work you put in on collecting the "Krait's secret"
references.):

David_Lebling at avid.com (Dave Lebling) wrote:

>As promised, these are hints Horn gives us about the inhumi's secret:
>
>p. 217: The inhumu had told me that we human beings were the cattle of his
>kind.
>They drink our blood in preference to the blood of animals merely because they
>prefer it (this is what he said) ...
>

[William Ansley] p. 241: ...I would cheerfully have burned or buried the
inhuma that bit Sinew when we were living in the tent. They are vile
creatures, exactly as Hari Mau says; but how can they help it, when we are
as we are? I wish sometimes that Krait had not told me.

>p. 315: He [Mehman] and Evensong waited outside while I explained what I had
>learned from Krait on Green. ... "Will you do whatever we tell you, if I
>release
>you?" I asked the inhuma. "Or shall I make good on my threat?" ... "I warn
>you,
>if you will not I am going to spread my knowledge everywhere."
>
>p. 317: "It's just occurred to me that you inhumi are rather like a kind of
>lizard I've noticed in my garden. It can change colors ... While I acknowledge
>that you inhumi are a much higher form of life, it seems to me that the
>principle is about the same." ... She only nodded. "You are correct, Rajan."
>
>p 350: "If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or
>worse. As
>it is, they always get enough to keep them going."
>
>p. 372: "I couldn't kill them here and now, if that's what you mean; but I
>know
>how they might be returned to the mere vermin that they once were -- mindless,
>hideous, blood-drinking animals seeking their prey in Green's jungles."
>
>p. 374: "Krait told me why they have to have it as he lay dying. ... He was
>thinking of the thing that linked him to me, and me to him -- of the bond of
>blood between us."
>
>p. 375:  "That's the kind of thing the inhumi must have done before the
>Vanished
>People reached Green -- reshaped themselves to look like the animals they
>hunted
>... "
>"If only we cared about each other sufficiently.  If only all of us loved all
>the others enough, they would go back to that. They would still think them
>horrible creatures, and they would still be dangerous, as the crocodiles
>in this
>lower river water are. But they would be no worse."
>
>There may be others that I've missed, of course, particularly any that are
>early
>in the book.
>
>I think the foregoing fits pretty well with the theory that it is only by
>drinking the blood of intelligent creatures that the inhumi established and
>maintain their own intelligence.  In addition, the inhumi may get their
>attitude
>from humans as well -- that is, they are monsters because we are monsters.
>
>If that is the secret, then we have a certain nice symmetry with parts of the
>Christian worldview.  That is, we are threatened by evil, but the evil comes
>from ourselves.  If we protected each other from it, it would disappear.  In
>short, we should all follow the Golden Rule. I won't speculate on how this
>would
>fit with Catholic (or any other) theology, but it seems like too good a match.
>
>This story is, first and foremost, about love.  Not love as in sex or lust
>(though that's there, too), but love between father and son, son and father,
>husband and wife, even between pet and master.  The secret of the inhumi
>is that
>love will protect us from them.
>
>     --- Dave Lebling
>     (aka vizcacha)

Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net> (Nutria) wrote:

>	Well, that's what I was going to write, having finished the book last
>night and reading the posts today, but you beat me to it. Completely agree.
>I think we have all we need to know the secret now. Remember also that
>Wolfe discusses devils/fallen-angels in other stories, and calls them
>servants of God who are used to chastise/punish people. The inhumi have the
>same role here. It might be useful to consider how exorcisms are done, both
>those in the Gospels and in Acts, and the Roman Catholic rite.

I agree that drinking human blood is what makes the inhumi intelligent and
human in their emotional/mental/moral structure. I find an interesting
parallel between the inhumi and the nephilim in Tim Powers' _The Stress of
Her Regard_, which I highly recommend to everyone here who hasn't read it.
In Powers' book the nephilim use the pattern (presumably DNA) in human
blood to take on human form. However, I have a problem with the way Dave
phrased the final passages of his posting.

The threat contained in the secret that Horn uses to control the inhumi
(Krait's secret) has to be something that they believe is possible to carry
out. If the threat Horn is holding over them is, "I will tell people that
they can defeat you by following the Golden Rule," I think they would have
have laughed in his face. The inhumi know human nature much too well to
believe that, even with the survival of humanity at stake, all people, or
even most of them will be able to do unto others only what they would have
the others do unto them. While it seems possible to me that if all the
people on Blue started to love one another then the inhumi would love them
as well and no longer want to prey on them, I don't think that the
precondition is possible. And, more importantly for my argument, I don't
believe that the inhumi would believe it was possible, either.

I think that if we have enough information to know what the secret is
already (and we may not) then it has to be something a good deal more
specific than obeying the Golden Rule, although I don't think it's
something entirely different. I think this quote is the key:

>p 350: "If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or
>worse. As
>it is, they always get enough to keep them going."

I think the secret is that ALL human beings must be protected from the bite
of the inhumi. No one on Blue wants the inhumi to feed on themselves or
their loved ones and they will usually go to great lengths to prevent it.
But, even though most of them probably don't want the inhumi to feed on any
human being, they won't risk themselves or even make much of an effort to
protect anyone else. But, if everyone knew that if the inhumi were
prevented from getting any human blood at all, they would become
unintelligent and (more importantly) unable to pose as human, then they
might be motivated to actually act on this knowledge.

I have to wonder how possible this complete protection would be, however.
It doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, which makes me expect that there
will turn out to be more than this to Krait's secret.

William Ansley

---

From: Urash, Tom <turash at firstam.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 13:12:34 +0000

> From:	Jim Jordan [SMTP:jbjordan at gnt.net]
> Sent:	Saturday, January 15, 2000 5:40 PM
> Inhumi! 
> I still say that the secret (probably) is that when humans learn to live
> instance), the inhumi will follow suit, being imitators of humanity.
> That's
> Nutria
	In other words, when Blue becomes a Utopian society the inhumi will,
after sufficient feeding on and exposure to the ways of happy humanity,
become loving cohabitors on Blue? This seems so improbable to me; so much
sweetness and light. Besides, how is this peaceful ending a threat to the
inhumi, so much so that they would actively seek the destruction of the
one(?) man carrying the secret on Blue?

	Tom