(urth) Inhumi in the Whorl

[Andrew Mason]

Jame Wynn wrote:

>
> Seriously? Their whole civilization on Green was destroyed centuries
> ago, but the Whorl arrives and they say "Here are the keys, Horn, we
> found a way off the planet. S'long."


Here is what the Neighbour says:

“Most of what you have said, we might say. This whorl of yours was
ours. We, the remnant of our race, have abandoned it, giving it to no
one and making no provision to keep it for ourselves. We found a way
to leave and we left, seeking a new and a better home.”

He turned from me, his face lifted to the western stars. “Some of you
call the place where we are  the Neighbor Whorl. It does not matter
what we call it, or what we once called this one. This whorl is yours
now. It is called Blue. It belongs to your race.”

This doesn't sound as if they are just now abandoning it. They did so
a while ago, and are now coming back to hand the keys over. It may be
that they left just twenty years ago, as the humans started to arrive.
But it may be that they left much earlier. Indeed 'giving it to no
one' might well be taken to mean that they had left before the humans
turned up, since once they did the Neighbours started thinking of them
as possible inheritors.