(urth) Travelin' Jahlee

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:23:24 -0700 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>Jahlee came to Blue at least twice. The fact that she fed on 
>infant Sinew
>and was mother to Krait is sufficient proof of that. She had to 
>return to
>Green to spawn, then came back to Blue, was caught and buried 
>under stones,
>then dug up by Silkhorn. That much is certain.
>
>What is less clear is how she got to Blue the first time, when she 

>bit
>Sinew.
>
>Sinew was conceived on the _Whorl_, so he could have been no more 
>than 2 or
>3 years old when bitten; he was still small enough to be sleeping 
>in a
>basket made by Nettle. In the scene where Silkhorn and Jahlee made 

>that
>impromptu astral visit to Green, the visit where she got left 
>behind in that
>room on the high cliff, she told him about learning to fly. She 
>said that it
>had taken her "years" just to be able to fly up to the room (IGJ, 
>61), and
>even after reaching it that she still had to learn more before 
>attempting
>the Crossing.
>
>It's also clear from that scene that she already had a human 
>spirit when she
>was very young; that is what motivated her to want to make the 
>crossing.
>Presumably she was born with it. So, the question is: If Sinew was 

>attacked
>by Jahlee during the first 2 or 3 years of colonization, before 
>she was able
>to make the Crossing under her own power, how did she get to Blue?
>
>I can think of only one solution -- she came on a lander. Either 
>she boarded
>one of those landers that returned to the _Whorl_ automatically 
>(like
>Abanja's), then went from the _Whorl_ to Blue on the same or 
>another lander,
>or, she went directly from Green to Blue on a lander, like the 
>slave ship
>from Pajarocu. Either way, what was Wolfe's point in having her go 

>to Blue
>before she could fly properly?
>
>Has anyone a better answer?
>
>-Roy

Wolfe may have nodded. 

Otherwise, you have to get around that "years" comment (which I'd 
forgotten when I posted about this a few days ago). I guess it's 
just possible that "years" = "~2 years", which might give Jahlee 
just enough time, assuming that young inhumi reach maturity very 
quickly. 

Do we know how long it takes a inhuma to grow to a point where she 
might be like young Jahlee, yearning to fly to Blue? Maybe it's not 
very long at all. (And of course there's the problem of what 
exactly a "year" is, in Green terms.)