Travelin' Jahlee

James Wynn · 14 Aug 2005, 20:43 · from 2005-August.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Sun Aug 14 20:43:49 2005
Subject: (urth) Travelin' Jahlee
References: <000c01c5a09b$6aafac40$cf3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <00e401c5a14b$b8d6c830$0201a8c0 at wdw.disney.com>

I missed this start of this interesting thread, so I'll just stick my toe in
as I see an opening.

>When he comes back to life, he orders everybody out almost
>immediately. I don't think he was alive whe the Whorl entered
>orbit. I think if he had been, he would have started chucking
>people out right away. Most likely, his family killed him as the
>Whorl approached the Short Sun system, to stop him from doing this.

*Pas* didn't do it "immediately". Silk and Auk did. It seems it took awhile
for before Pas went to extremes to drive people out. And then it was because
the Whorl was clearly suffering from an overpopulation of Cargo (running out
of water and such). Anyway if the prep work had already been done, it was
necessary to re-do it after Pas' resurrection. It would be understandable
that Pas' family waited for the last possible moment to rub him out rather
than as soon as they entered orbit.

>But then wouldn't the Crew be aware of the scouting? Why would Pas
>hide it from them? Silkhorn makes it clear in the Abanja passage in
>IGJ that he believes the Crew were not deliberately lying about
>Auk's lander being the first.

I'm becoming exasperatingly convinced that the answer is not discernable
simply from the text. I suppose I'm coming around to Dan'l's position that
Wolfe has created several unresolvable puzzels. But I think the answer is
somewhere in that IMO when Silk sees "Pike's Ghost", it is the Rajan in
soul-traveling through time. There are plenty of clues that the Rajan *has*
time-traveled. In the LS (Lake I think) Silk saw a ghostly form of Oreb fly
from his window at a time that Oreb was unable to fly. In IGJ, the
grandmother tells a story from her childhood in which the Rajan and Oreb
make an appearance. And that description of Pike's ghost vanishing sure
looks more like *exactly* like soul travel to me.I realize this raises
uncomfortable questions about why Silk thought it was Pike he saw.

>And wouldn't Pas know then that Green
>wasn't a good destination, even if he didn't recognize the threat
>of the inhumi? But when the landers go, the passengers get not the
>>slightest hint of what's down there - no maps, no nothing. If Pas
>had been spending time studying the planets, it certainly doesn't
>show.
> But Silkhorn was also sure that landers *had* been sent out before Auk's.
> Who cut that big cable down at the Pole? When did it happen, and why? Was
> that the reason for Mainframe's and the Crew's ignorance of the comings
and
> goings?
>
> [snip of stuff I can't refute] <g>
>
>>Just quickly on Neighborly astral travelling: it might be different
>>from what Silkhorn does, but I don't know of any reason to suppose
>>so. The Neighbors Silkhorn encounters seem generally to be present
>>in astral form - eg his first encounter, in OBW. Their sleeping
>>bodies are presumably on "the Neighbor Whorl". The Neighbor who
>>names it thus gazes towards the "Western stars" when he does so,
>>which makes me think it is a "real" place, located amongst them.
>
>Yes, but . . . the way it's phrased, "We found a way to leave and we left,
>seeking a new and a better home." "Found a way" doesn't sound to me like
>they just boarded their spaceships and went elsewhere. There would have
been
>nothing novel about that if they had had a high-tech civilization, which
>they apparently once did, judging from the ruins on Green. I think there
>must be something more to it.

Returning to the scene of the "bird-legged man" the Rajan IIRC the way the
scene is written implies that the rock was always structure and the man was
always a tree(?), he just didn't notice it before (like looking at those ink
blots that are actually pictures of Jesus or George Washington).  That
suggests to me that the Neighbors are hiding in plain sight. Their "bodies"
are the trees. All the associations between the inhumi and the lianas is
because that is the form they took to feed on the Neighbors. The "war" they
describe was a very slow moving one. How does such a civilization create
altars, glass domes, and The Mother? I'm not certain. But then the Rajan
could form whatever he wanted out of thin air so who knows? How did they
"find a way to leave"? I don't know exactly but I think it has to do with
the arrival of the Whorl. The Rajan cannot go anywhere that one of his
fellow travelers has not been. Presumably, neither could the Neighbors. So
when they had access to the colonists, they could get to the Whorl and even
to Urth.

>Is it just coincidence that Q's attainment of office more or less coincided
>with the death of Pas? I doubt it. I'm not implying cause and effect, just
>noting the correlation.

!!
I don't think it is coincidental at all, and I think it is suggestive of who
Quetzal's mother fed on, but then I say the same about his Tussah's death
and Pas' death.
Oh, nevermind. It's like Silk said. No one will believe it.
;-)

J

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