From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: (urth) Poor Moly
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 02:49:55 -0600

>Crush responds:
>Raise one hand and one hand only. Now tell me how you snap your "FINGER"
>(singular). 

I don't see why you're hung up on the one-hand-or-two angle. Marble took
both of Rose's hands, but even one hand that looks like an old woman's hand
suffices to establish that it did not originally come from a dismantled chem
maid. *After* the possession of Marble/Rose by Echidna was over, while the
Rose personality was telling Silk about the birth of Blood, she took hold of
one of Silk's hands: "Her hand--he recognized it now as Maytera
Rose's--found his." (LS3: 4) He knew it was Rose's because it looked like an
old woman's hand. The hand Blood cut off is such a hand. From the talus
factory chapter of LS4, page 138: "Maytera Marble had passed her basket to
Swallow; he took off the white towel that had covered her now-lifeless right
hand and held it up, in appearance the hand of an elderly woman."

>There is no doubt that the parts came from a dismantled chem. Silk's
>conversation with Horn in LS2:1 proves beyond argument that Rose's
>prosthetics were not made originally for bios. Silk says quite clearly that
>(1)such technology was left behind on Urth and (2)while Xiphias' leg was
>such an artifact, Rose's definitely were not. The onus is on you to explain
>where they came from if not from a chem?

The onus *isn't* on me--it's your theory that the parts came from a
dismantled chem. In any event, I've already provided an answer in an earlier
post. Tarsier, for one, had the know-how, as evidenced by the highly
customized, glow-in-the-dark body he provided for Lemur. The arms of that
body required a much higher degree of technical knowledge to build than a
cosmetic veneer on a prosthetic hand. Further, the list of characters in
LAKE says of Tarsier that he was "expert on architecture and engineering". I
doubt that he was unique.

>Marble (impersonating Moly) in LS3:10 says she had been at the Sun St.
>cenoby since before humans came to Viron. The onus is on you to explain
what
>happened to Moly.

Moly is your problem, not mine. She doesn't appear in the books. I wouldn't
say that Marble was impersonating Moly; she was just lying. Marble's meeting
with Hammerstone is not related in the books. I don't know what she told
him, but her name was *never* Molybdenum; it was Magnesia before she became
a sibyl, just as she told Mint. (LS4, 359)

>Maybe you can show why anyone would create "bony blue-veined" prosthetic
>hands for ***anyone***, but I'm afraid I find the concept absurd.

The fact remains that, like it or not, that's the way the text has it.

>I've explained why the hands looked like that during Musk's sacrifice.

You were wrong, as I've shown. That's the way they looked, period.

While I'm at it, I may as well shoot some more holes in your theory. You
maintain, on your Molybdenum web page, that "old worn-out" Marble was made a
teacher, while (hypothetical, to me) Moly, "whose parts were still in good
condition", was dismantled to provide parts for *Betel*. I must point out
that, soldier or servant, *all the chems are the same age*. If, as you
maintain, "Moly" was at Sun Street from Day One, and if, as the text states,
the maid had no room at the cenoby because chems didn't need one, because a
chem maid worked 24/7, then why should one maid be in much better condition
than another? Why should a cenoby built for six sibyls even *need* two
maids, when they work 24/7?

And that business about Betel getting all those prosthetics: that's not in
the text, not even the need for them. You go further and claim that Rose
inherited those prosthetics from Betel. That must have made quite a sight.
Betel was "fat", whereas Rose was "such a small woman". (LS3: 4)

As you postulate young Pike as Blood's father, then all this unholy
dismantling took place on his watch. And to think, the Outsider thought so
well of him as to grant him enlightenment. Three sibyls--Betel, Rose, and
Marble--and an augur all kept their mouths shut about the murder/martyrdom
of a chem maid. Or are you going to tell me that Pike didn't notice that a
maid was missing from the complex for forty-fifty years? Or that he was a
fellow conspirator?

You also state on your page that Hammerstone, after his 74-year 'sleep',
went to Sun Street looking for his lost love, Moly. Pure fabrication,
directly contradicted by the text:

    "'I had to go on reserve. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I wasn't
stationed in the city any more. Maybe I should've gone looking for Moly.' He
shrugged. 'Only I figured by then she'd found somebody else. Just about all
of them had.'" (LS3: 3)

-Roy


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