(urth) Hyacinth's weight

[Roy C. Lackey]

James Wynn quoted and wrote:
>   On 9/3/2010 12:28 AM, Dave Tallman wrote:
> > I've been looking around in CofLS and EftLS and I have yet to find any
> > reference to Hyacinth's weight being unusually low. I seem to have
> > exhausted all the times Silk and Hy were together. Does anyone know
> > where to find these?
>
> I'm back and released from my imprisonment. I also had trouble
> relocating these references by normal hunt and peck methods.  I've
> started another pass through the books. But I'm quite certain they were
> referenced. Back in the day when I was arguing that Hy might be a chem,
> I conceded that weight was a hurtful blow because it had been referenced
> about her at least twice.

I don't presume to know what you were thinking then or now, but since it was
I who brought up the weight issue back then, I do know what I was thinking
and what I said. It had nothing to do with Hy's weight being unusually low;
it was that chems, particularly the males (you were saying that Hy was a
male chem), weigh much more than humans. Even a fem chem weighs more than
human women.

This is indicated a couple times. One is in the wake of Rose's funeral.
Marble had killed Musk and overheated in the fire and collapsed. Later, Silk
helped her to stand up but had to  heave "with all his strength" to do it.
He helped her to the arbor near the manse and the Rose in her started
talking about giving birth to Blood. At one point he said "I would have
carried you, Maytera, if I could; but I knew you'd be too heavy for me to
lift." (CALDE, chap. 4, 131)

Another place is when Mint (shortly after getting out of the tunnels) and
Marble were reunited near the Grand Manteion. "Maytera Mint was laughing and
hugging her and trying to lift her off the ground, which was so ridiculous
that Maytera Marble exclaimed, 'Stop, sib, before you hurt yourself!'"
(EXODUS, chap. 11, 215)

-Roy