(urth) Hero as Werwolf

[Jonathan Goodwin]

I'm teaching Island of Dr. Death, etc. in an introduction to short
fiction class this semester. We covered "Hero as Werwolf" yesterday,
and I had some questions about it that came up during class.

I've looked as best I could through the archives, though I'm sure I
must have missed several things. What I saw didn't address these
questions, though again I'm sure it's been discussed.  Anyway, here's
the first one:

When the recording starts, here is what Paul hears:

"I am sorry to detain you, but there is reason to think that you have
undergone a recent deviation from the _optional_ development pattern.
In a few minutes, it may be useful for us to review what is meant by
'_optimal_ development.' Look at the projection." (emphases mine)

It is such in both the Island collection and the Best of. I didn't
check the original. I asked the class whether they thought it was a
misprint, and, if not, why the two words were used. Most seemed to
agree that it was not a misprint but were unsure of the implications.
The possibility was raised that the masters intended to use homo
sapiens (the "optional" development) to colonize the moon or similar
(this being their "optimal" use) for resource extraction perhaps:

"Later one's peer group becomes, for a time, all-important--or nearly
so. The boys and girls you see are attending a model school in
Armstrong. Notice that no tint is used to mask the black of space
above their airtents."

But then we remembered the woman that Paul kills speaking of how in
"another year, everything would have been alright." Some thought that
implied that she would be leaving, though others assumed that the
masters had not created a needless egalitarian society and that she
may have been supporting herself via prostitution.

We also discussed why it was Hugo De Vries, of all people, in
four-dimensional projection, though this seems relatively clear.