End of Book One

William H. Ansley · 06 May 1998, 00:15 · from urth-v0010.mbox · original

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From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley at warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) RE:End of Book One
Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 00:15:56
Message-ID: <urth-v0010-0090 at digest.urth.net>
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>FunkMonkey Theory Two:
>
>Dr. Talos on the creatures inside the wall:  "I do not doubt that there are
>among them many who search fo some particular miscreant, and that if they
>were to see the one they seek, they would sally out and lay hold of him."
>Hethor, as noted by Sev., is hanging his head.  Sev. thinks its due to the
>opression of the great wall's enormity and weight felt when passing through
>it.  Sev's been wrong before, esp about people's motives.
>Could it be that Hethor is wanted for some crime?

I *like* this theory! It seems to explain everything quite well, except why
no one mentions the cacogens coming out of the wall later on. (Maybe the
cacogens had those little MIB flashbulb amnesia tubes!) I can certainly
believe that Hethor was a wanted man.

>The creatures in the
>wall, while it's mentioned that they are engineered humans, some could
>definitly be cacogens.  Hethor, afraid of being recognized is hanging his
>head.  Some sort of interstellar outlaw.  The creatures in the wall see him
>and "sally out" to "lay hold of him."  Obviously they don't get him as he
>shows up in Saltus.
>

Severian does say this when talking about the wall: "Cacogens, I think,
were there, beings to whom the avern was but what a marigold or marguerite
is to us."
(very near the end of _Shadow_, p. 208 of the Orb ed. While this isn't a
guarantee, it certainly makes cacogens in the wall a possibility.

>What would Hethor's crime be?  WARNING:Quantum leap in logic...  He hints =
at
>the fact that he may of been the CAPTAIN of the -quazar-.  "I the old
>captain, the old lieutenant, the old c-c-cook in his old kitchen, cooking
>soup, cooking broth for the dying pets!"  he has obviously been unbalanced
>by the crew stealing his 'doll.'  He claims death (Sev) is his master and
>uses the afformentioned line as justification.  Could it be that after
>finding his living doll missing (Maybe it showed up with the phantom cat in
>another story) Hethor, captain of the -quazar- poisons his crew and kills
>them all (cooking soup for the dying pets).  Steals some mirrors, jumps sh=
ip
>and lives out his days as a fugitive.  Cacogen's and the Autarch brand him=
 a
>criminal and are on the look out for him.

While I wouldn't rule out that Hethor killed off everyone else on the
Quasar, I always took that "cooking soup for the dying pets" line to mean
that he was trying to keep some of his alien creatures alive, since he
didn't know what to feed them and they were starving.

William Ansley

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