From: adam louis stephanides <astephan@students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: (urth) Fifth Head of Cerberus
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:27:23 


Robert Borski writes:

> later, when the junior
> officer assigned to review Marsch/VRT's case reads of Marsch's being
> scratched by thorns after an encounter with the tire-tiger, he interrupts
> his reading and goes back and specifically rereads the two sentences about
> the shrike.

Actually he just "glanced at the first few pages..."

> But then I went back to VRT and picked up the narrative, with the junior
> officer coming back to Marsch's journal, which he has put down, no doubt
> having free asscociated Marsch's mention of thorns with Roncevaux (again,
> French for thorns).

I think the officer puts down the journal because he remembers "Marsch's"
changed handwriting (i. e. VRT's handwriting) as being similar to the
writing in VRT's composition book, and wants to check.  That's why he only
glances at a few pages before returning, satisfied, to the journal.  The
discrepancy between Marsch's real handwriting and the writing in the
composition book is presumably why the officer at first doubts that the
journal is actually by "Marsch" (195 in the Ace edition, in which "V. R.
T." runs from pp. 149-270).

mantis writes:
 
> In addition, Cassilla seems like an abo, from what we know about abo
> female prostitutes (shape shifting, make themselves ugly when they
> aren't in the mood, green eyes?  [Is this an echo of their world
> color, the green of Sainte Anne?  If so, gee, blue eyes might be for
> Sainte Croix.].

I don't get any of this from the two Cassilla passages I found (214, 267).
And if Cassilla can make herself unattractive at will, it seems like she
would certainly do so to get out of the session with the officer, after
just having spend two hours with the major and having to get up early next
morning.
 
> And Cassilla might be the presumed dead cat-girl, working out her
> revenge upon the traitor-to-his-race-and-girlfriend Marsh/V.R.T.
> With Number Five the doomed heir of the only "pure" humans left.

You and Robert Borski both believe that the cat followed Marsch and V.R.T.
is the same as the Annese girl Marsch is convinced V.R.T. is dallying
with.  While I can see evidence for this, I'm not convinced.  To start
with, there's a problem with conservation of matter.  And what's V.R.T.'s
motive for killing the girl?  He supposedly kills the cat as part of a
funerary ceremony for "the boy"--i.e. Marsch--and it seems unlikely he
would kill one of the Free People for the benefit of an Earthman he
doesn't particularly like, especially if he did murder Marsch.

My guess as to what happened is that Marsch did catch V.R.T. with the
girl and tried to kill them, as he said he would in his journal (251), and
V.R.T. killed Marsch in self-defence.  The girl just dropped out of the
story.

--Adam


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