Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 16:15:40 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) 5HC Strong Evidence of Telepathy?

Tony Ellis, referring to the list of names, wrote:

>The Old Wise One has pulled these names out of the minds of passing starship
>crews. Check out the speech preceding the list of names, which begins "We
>came here either recently or a long, long time ago." He says that when the
>Shadow Children try to remember the name of 'their' home, they "hear also
>the mind-singing", ie pick up the thoughts of, passing starship crews, and
>"these thoughts come into our songs." The next sentence is the list of
>names.
>
>So. The Shadow Children know that 'their' home is somewhere long ago and far
>away. They find some pretty names for places long ago and far away in the
>minds of passing starship crews that seem to strike a chord, so these are
>the ones they come up with.

Leaving aside the issues of shape-changing (yes/no), and abo existence
(yes/no), one thing I think this quote does point to rather strongly is
telepathy in general and the weird psychic linkage between Number 5 and
V.R.T.

Because while nearly all of the other names could plausibly be plucked out
of passing starships over time, Gondwanaland seems to be coined by Number 5
in his lesson at the library, on a very specific day.

Does this mean that the moment when Number 5 is saying it out loud is
simultaneous to the moment when OWO is saying it?  (Not in the "distant
Annese past" sense of "A Story," but in one of the other senses: for
example, the "the story is a disguised version of V.R.T.'s real life and
crimes" sense, where it might thereby point to V.R.T. being in some kind of
sandpit/prison at the time when Number 5 was in the library.)  Maybe, maybe
not.

Furthermore, this detail adds to the other strange confusions between
V.R.T. and Number 5: two others include the fact that Number 5 sees robot
guards gone berserk, killing prisoners in the third year of his sentence
(Ace pb p. 70), and V.R.T. had a dream of robots going berserk, killing him
(210); Number 5 has dream of court fenced with pillars, which echoes the
woodhenge observatory on Sainte Anne seen by Marsch, shown by V.R.T.

One brother who dreams the life and trials of the other brother, this is a
big element of "A Story."  And when they finally meet, one brother kills
the other; and Number 5 may have set in motion V.R.T.'s arrest when he
denounced him as an abo spy (that is: what if "A Story" is retelling
V.R.T.'s life prior to prison).

=mantis=


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