Inhumi's secret and numbers on Blue

Lee Berman · 28 Nov 2012, 14:44 · from 2012-November.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:44:56 -0500
Subject: (urth) Inhumi's secret and numbers on Blue
Message-ID: <SNT123-W5597B443E7B168C483153DCF5D0 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff: A winged, intelligent descendent of plants capable of going dormant 
>could conceivably carry this out (aside from firing seeds across the abyss). It's a 
>stretch, but one worth making. Anything else is unlikely even by SF standards.

I do like this theme for the secret of the Inhumi. I agree with Marc that the association
of parasitic inhumi and multi-limbed Neighbors with parasitic lianas and trees is more than
a casual metaphor. There seems to be something literal to it.

As Sergei reports, the description of Inhumi mating habits comes very close to the end of 
this story and this placement suggests it should reveal more than it seems to. There is a
ludicrous nature to the idea of male inhumu building a house and providing a ritual gift to a 
female then having them flop into the water to perform non-sexual aqueous fertiliztion like a 
fish or frog.

Perhaps mating/reproduction is part of the secret of the Inhumi. Juganu's story really doesn't
ring true. Perhaps he is just using what little animal biology he knows to invent a lie to 
cover their true plant/seed origin. (they don't sprout, but Inhumi do survive years of burial).

My own line of thought regarding the essential secret of the Inhumi has been to focus on their
hitchihiking/stowaway skills (Fava's integration into Mora's family is the same sort of skill).
What just struck me is that hitchhiking/stowaway strategies are very inherent in the nature of 
many types of seeds.

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