(urth) Shadow Children and Inhumi

[Andrew Mason]

Gerry Quinn wrote:

> This one is easy.  Note that it occurs when there is only one Shadow Child
> left alive in the group.  The Old Wise One has grown taller because he is
> constructed from Sandwalker as well as the last Shadow Child.  "Now I am
> half a man", he says.  Atr this point, yes, he does admit to being confused
> as to which species is which.
>
> Elsewhere, though, he makes statements such as "all the great political
> movements of history were born in prisons".  The Shadow Children have
> memories of Earth.  They have knowledge of the starcrossers passing by.
> They recite poetry about starcrossers.  The Abos know nothing of all this.

I agree that other things being equal, what the Old Wise One says
first - while he is still the collective consciousness of Shadow
Children - is more reliable than what he says later, when he is partly
Free People and rather confused about his identity. Nevertheless, I
think there is a deliberate ambiguity here. Just to confuse the matter
further, the whole story is written by 'John V. Marsch'. Now, 'John V.
Marsch' is of course not really John V. Marsch, but V.R.T., who is
presumably drawing on the traditions of his people, but still he has
knowledge of humans and of Earth culture, so the words he puts in the
mouth of the Shadow Children do not directly prove anything about
them.

I do think, though, that the Shadow Children are certainly giving
false names for the land they came from. Poictesme did not exist; and
though Gondwanaland may have done, its people certainly did not call
it Gondwanaland. What I would read this as meaning is that they are
quite recent arrivals from Earth, coming at a time when these names
where known, just a hundred years or so  before the better recorded
French expedition. Two things that might support this are the
'observatory', which if I remember rightly Marsch postulated was about
a hundred years old, and the names 'John' and 'Mary' used by the Free
People, perhaps the names of the first humans they met. (Of course,
this is equally consistent with the Free People being the recent
arrivals, and they and the Shadow Children having changed places.)

The same question arises for the Annese as for the Inhumi, whether
they can breed with humans. It is perhaps more plausible that they can
if they are of human descent. V.R.T. is alleged to be half-Abo. (Wolfe
has said that he is a Shadow Child, though some think this was a
slip.)