(urth) 5HC

[Richard Simon]

On Tuesday, 26 August 2014, 23:01, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:





No lee, I think he was a shadow child, which is very different than an abo.

I agree.

the switch happened as soon as they landed on ste Anne at the same time Sandwalker and eastwind were switched (Trenchard later says his ancestor is the east wind who met the Landers) when all of a [sudden] "they" can't recognize what open hands mean.

Do you mean that all the 'Annese' descendants of Sandwalker are SC/Annese hybrids? That would mean that two species, evolved on planets twenty light-years apart, are capable of interbreeding. I find this a little far-fetched. I admit that the ability of humans to live by hunting and eating Annese animals suggests a certain amount of microbiological compatibility — similar molecular chirality, for instance – but it's a long way from being able to eat something to being able to interbreed with it, especially in the wild.

My own reading is that when Eastwind is killed, the Shadow Child takes on his form, and it is the (apparent) twin brothers Eastwind and Sandwalker who greet the arriving French. By the way, it is the Annese, not the French, who have forgotten what the open-hands gesture means; my copy of 5HoC, an Arrow paperback published in the UK, reads as follows:
When (Sandwalker) came close to them they extended their hands, open, and smiled; but he did not understand that open hands meant (or had meant, once)...I find it more credible that Sandwalker and his descendants tolerated transmogrified Shadow Children amongst their communities than that they actually interbred with them. Other Annese tribes probably would not have followed suit. 
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