Hethor's mirrors: further reflection

And mantis:

I like both these ideas, but the trouble is Father Inire says in his letter that Agia remains a plausible commander "as long as the mirrors of the caller Hethor remain unbroken" (Citadel, XXXV). "Unbroken" does rather suggest that these are the old-fashioned, rigid, seven-years-bad-luck mirrors that we know today rather than fabric. Inire -could- have meant "unbroken" in the sense of "still working", but it seems unlikely. Since apports appear out of the space -between- mirrors, rather than out of the mirrors themselves, I suppose they don't actually have to be that large.

...

I have to agree with that; rigid breakable glasslike mirrors do seem to be implied...

...and knowing Inire, I don't think I can even argue convincingly that he simply made an assumption in ignorance; Inire probably not only knew exactly of what type and size Hether's mirrors were and how he transported them, Inire probably observed him doing so first-hand. I suppose you could speculate Inire wanted to plant a red herring against espionage in his correspondence, but that hypothesis is admittedly rather weak...

I got the impression that the kind of teleportation or apporting done by Inire's booth did involve mirrors which were at least as large as the dimensions of the subject parallel to the plane of the mirror, and of course the Ship's sails are vast as continents, but I seem to have misplaced my Specula Technical Applications Manual and can't confirm that... A thought did occur to me, though. Remember that Hethor was caught on the House Absolute grounds and thrown into the Antechamber. Clearly he had his specula because he managed to summon his corrosive slug while incarcerated. You might argue that the slug was already present and merely followed Hethor in, but I doubt that would have been unnoticed by the guards and servants. Odilo for one would have been positively apoplectic over the slime on the carpets. Now, Sev and Jonas upon their arrest had been searched and relieved of possible weapons and valuables, but not too meticulously (or the Claw would have been found, too). Rigid mirrors, even hand mirrors, would have been rather hard to conceal well unless they were smaller than coins. A flexible mirror which could be folded or wadded into a very tight little ball could have been secreted into a fold of clothing, a shoe, or -ahem- other concealing places which the Praetorians would not have bothered to search.