(urth) “Tracking Song” (and other stories)

[Roy C. Lackey]

Matthew Groves wrote:
>I've recently read "Tracking Song" (_The Island of Doctor Death and
>Other Stories and Other Stories_), along with Borski's blurb in _The
>Long and Short of It_ and an enlightening discussion in the old
>archives (does Alice "alga" Turner still subscribe?), and I wanted to
>throw out a few questions in hope of stimulating some discussion.

I don't remember what I may have said about this story in the past, but I
read it again, along with Borski's comments. It's hard to argue against his
interpretation of a bastardized rehash of the Fall, and if not everything
matches up with _Genesis_, that's not necessarily a mark against his theory;
Wolfe always changes things when he retells something. Cutthroat's
"birthmark" is otherwise hard to account for, as is the tall winged being at
the end.

Still, it's also hard to see that cold planet as Edenic, and it is Man who
is returning to it to make it more paradisiacal. And the little we learn
about the men of the Great Sleigh seems to make them out to be do-gooder,
holier-than-thou types out to transform not just the planet but the
beastmen, to make them over according to a moral code they brought with
them. If they aren't 'bad guys' (in the eyes of the jealous, vengeful God of
the O.T.), then how is it that they have usurped the role of God in this
little drama?

If the Great Sleigh represents a type of Eden, and if Cutthroat was cast out
of it for some reason, then we have a reversal of the _Genesis_ situation.
Adam sinned and gained knowledge; Cutthroat sinned and lost knowledge -- his
memory.

Cutthroat made a sort of moral progress during his brief sojourn. He came to
regard the beastmen as too near human to be killed and eaten. Was he
rewarded for that change by being healed of his wound? Or was he rewarded by
being allowed to die after less than three weeks of exile? Or was he further
punished by being healed but left in exile?

If his "birthmark" was a mark like Cain's, then it did him little good. He
was mortally wounded (in the dark!) by one of the "Min" from the cave, who
should not have been able to harm a true man. But maybe their prime
directive was corrupted by their bits of flesh. (Poor Jonas.)

>Why does the number fourteen seem significant to Cutthroat?  (After he
>records the fourteenth day's log, Cim leaves her recorded parting
>message to him, which he apparently never listens to.)

Best I can tell, it was an almost-remembered bit of knowledge, like bears
and plastic and other planets with higher gravity. I think that, deep down,
he understood that if he had simply stayed where he was on day one, that the
Sleigh would complete its leisurely circumnavigation of the small planet in
two weeks.

-Roy