Like a good Neighbor

Lee Berman · 24 Nov 2011, 16:58 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:58:32 -0500
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
Message-ID: <SNT123-W1065BFB544E562A58D55A6CFCE0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: Wolfe plays fast and loose with the laws of physics when it suits the story.

Actually, he doesn't. He is as meticulous as he can be. In this case it is completely 

unnecessary for inhumi to fly through space. And they don't. Wolfe would not give us such

an implausible scientific impossibility unless there was a desperate need for it in the

story. And there isn't. The way inhumi travel through space is shown: on spaceships, using 

deception to stow away in one form or another. 

Raising the possibility of their unassisted space travel is used to illustrate the power of 

lying, not to encourage fantastic, non-texual biological impossibilities. The inhumi need 

this secret to be well-kept or they will lose the vital element of deceit they need to get 

onto spaceships.

Listen to yourself, Gerry. You are inventing rotissirie chicken spinning in space and insulated, 

radiation-proof hard shells from nothing. And for what? To allow the inhumi to not be liars, 

when they are all, without exception, demonstrable liars.

>Dorcas has answered this point long ago, when Severian was inclined to doubt the undine?s claim 

>to swim between the stars:

"When I was with Dr. Talos and you were gone, he and Jolenta used to tell me what a simple-minded 

>person I was for believing people we met on the road, and things that Baldanders said, and things 

>they said themselves, too. Just the same, I think that even the people who are called liars tell 

>the truth much more often than they lie. It's so much easier! If that story about saving you wasn't 

>true, why tell it? It could only frighten you when you thought back on it. And if she doesn't swim

>between stars what a useless thing to say. 

Very good and appropriate quote, Gerry. But by taking it too literally you are missing the hidden

significance of it. In this quote, Baldanders and Dr. Talos admit being liars. They are liars! That

is a fact which must color everything they say before and everything after this passage. Same for 

the inhumi. If there is a grain of truth in their lies about them flying in space during the 

conjunction it is that they ride on short-distance landers which rely on the conjunction for the 

shortest travel path.

FWIW, Juturna is also a liar. The passage suggests it by conflating her statement with those of 

Baldanders and Talos. Her lying is supported by the appearance of Idas on the Ship. She is cellular,

thus she does not "swim between the stars" unassisted, like a mini-spaceship. If pinned down, perhaps

she would explain that swimming between the stars is a poetic way of saying she can travel through

time, "in the spaces between stars" i.e. space-time. Or something like that.

This leaves Tzadkiel's space-borne image in the mirror book to consider. Her self-description of her

sponge-like character seem to suggest she is cellular in nature. So what gives with the outer space

Tzadkiel? My interpretation is that image was Tzadkiel's true essence.  He/She is, in essence, spiritual 

only, not biological, as  befits an angel. Tzadkiel, like angels, only takes a biological form when 

he/she needs to interact with others of that type.

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