Travelin' Jahlee

Roy C. Lackey · 17 Aug 2005, 22:12 · from 2005-August.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Wed Aug 17 22:12:05 2005
Subject: (urth) Travelin' Jahlee
Message-ID: <001201c5a3b3$5d172ac0$5e3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

I wrote:
>>Now that's a problem. Not for Jahlee's personal timeline, but in general.
>>Landers can't account for the Crossing stories she heard. Assuming Wolfe
>>just didn't make a mistake, that would require a pool of sentient inhumi
in
>>place on Green *before* Auk's lander arrived, inhumi who had made the trip
>>during a conjunction prior to the exodus.
>>Who might those sentient inhumi
>>have fed on? Worse, there would have to have been people on Blue for them
>to
>>feed on, otherwise they would have been making a very dangerous trip for
no
>>reason.

Crush wrote:
>Since Quetzal was on the lander, we know there were likely sentient inhumi
>on Green. Wolfe has *said* Quetzal was not the only inhumi on the Whorl.
His
>existence shows that the inhumi had on the Whorl for at least forty years
>and would be well ensconced among the Cargo. In fact, they probably brought
>a few with them both to Blue and to Green (perhaps even on Auk's lander).
>Sooo...it is reasonable to presume that the sentient inhumi on Green would
>have heard about landers arriving at Blue.
>
>I think I'm missing an important facet of your question.

No, I think I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. Horn's lander(s) left the
_Whorl_ just days after Auk's. If Andrew is anywhere near right about a
conjunction in or about Blue year 2, then I suppose it's possible that
sentient inhumi (fed on Auk's party) could have made the trip to and from
Blue with sufficient time left over for a young Jahlee to have heard them
talking about it. It just makes that window of opportunity for Jahlee to
feed on Sinew smaller and smaller.

>Why the heck did the Neighbors use inhumi to "study" humans anyway? They
>would permit them to study human souls. But for what purpose? What useful
>knowledge did they gain from such experiments?

Well, if nothing else, it gave them One-Hour-Photo snapshot versions of what
humans were really like. But that doesn't really answer the question. At
least I hope it doesn't. The Neighbors may have had a proprietary interest
in strangers coming to their Blue-Green system, but who put them on a moral
high-horse?

-Roy

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