Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 01:01:28 -0400
From: William Ansley 
Subject: Re: FW: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth

At 1:22 PM -0500 8/31/02, James Wynn wrote:
>2.   Horn alludes to his suspicions regarding Silk's true heritage, to which
>Silk finally answers, "There are so many lies in the whorl...May I instance
>you one more? Hyacinth subdued our pilot, Hyacinth alone." How is that a lie
>if the fight went the way you describe it? If it went like Marble's fight
>with Musk (as I infer) then there really is something else going on.

Hello, Crush.

I *finally* caught up with all the messages generated in response to 
your quite interesting ideas and I have a comment to make. But first 
I must warn you that, if anyone is, I am part of the "not ... large 
contingent on the list" that Robert Borski warned you about in his 
message of 8/28/02, the members of which will subject you to "a 
certain amount of ridicule, scorn, and derision." I certainly don't 
intend to submit you to such things, but I never meant to do so to 
Robert, either, so apparently I can't help it.

I don't agree with you on the necessity of Hyacinth being a chem. In 
fact, we seem to be interpreting Wolfe's words so radically 
differently, I doubt we can agree on much. You cite Silk's line 
"There are so many lies in the whorl...May I instance you one more? 
Hyacinth subdued our pilot, Hyacinth alone." as support for the idea 
that Hyacinth is a chem, if I understand you correctly. It seems to 
me to be just the opposite.

Your reasoning seems to be:
-Hyacinth did defeat the pilot alone.
-A normal flesh and blood woman would have had a very hard time doing 
this while a chem would have had an easy time of it.
-Therefore, it is very likely that Hyacinth is a chem.
-Silk is aware there is something fishy about how Hyacinth defeated 
the pilot so he say the line above.

But surely, the statement "Hyacinth subdued our pilot, Hyacinth 
alone." is *true* if Hyacinth defeated the pilot by herself, whether 
she is a chem or a bio. The only thing that would make it a lie is if 
she *had help from someone else*! I have no idea what form this help 
might have taken or who it was from (or even if she really did have 
help) but the way I interpret Silk's remark is that he suspects that 
Hyacinth had help, not that she is a chem with super-strength. If 
Silk had said something along the lines of "There are so many lies in 
the whorl...May I instance you one more? Hyacinth subdued our pilot, 
Hyacinth, a mere weak, flesh-and-blood woman." then I'd say you had a 
point.
-- 

William Ansley


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