Someday they'll want us.

Lee Berman · 24 Jun 2010, 14:39 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:39:49 -0400
Subject: (urth) Someday they'll want us.
Message-ID: <SNT123-W29D9961BBF56029ED333B7CFC60 at phx.gbl>

> The subject, clearly, is Phaedria and her child. Who are the "us" of the
> example?

I read the ending very differently. I think Phaedria has long moved on and
that is recognized by #5. 

My understanding is that Mr. Million and his successors are exceedingly 
narcisisstic, which is why they continue to clone themselves. Their
thinking is that the goal of planetary or even inter-planetary rule could, 
of course, be accomplished by such a superior person if only they had more 
than one lifetime to pursue the goal. Frustration is expressed over the fact
that after several lifetimes they have not progressed beyond being an 
aristocratic pimp on St. Croix. So the "us" is the sucession of clones and the 
"they" are the fellow humans who refuse to acknowledge and submit to his 
superiority.

Gene Wolfe nicely expresses the underlying problem with a dream sequence of
a ship which Matre refuses to untie from the dock until he can learn what is
keeping it from sailing.(i.e. with cloning there is no evolution, no progress).

I'm glad this ending was brought to attention. 5HoC is the novella which first
drew me to Gene Wolfe's writing and I consider the final denouement to be among
the two most chilling, sad and lonely endings in SF.

(the other being Heinlein's All You Zombies in which we learn *Spoiler* 
the main character, who longs for a lost lover and family, has managed, through 
time travel and gender surgery, to be his/her own lost lover as well as his own
mother, father and child in a closed loop. The final line, "You aren?t really there
at all. There isn?t anybody but me?here alone in the dark.
I miss you dreadfully." I must suspect this 1959 story was an influence on Wolfe) 		 	   		  
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