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<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTinx2tXTs6HYPbe2kAT7TQ4uMKPxFvUWm11BWcqz@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Andrew-
Well, for one thing, although Silk has been bred to be special, his
specialness is not wholly due to his breeding, but also to the
Outsider. Without his intervention Silk might have lived out his life
as a humble augur - perhaps gaining a reputation as a specially gifted
augur, but no more For another, we know that the store of embryos
below Viron has been raided and all the embryos gone; perhaps in other
cities that isn't so. On the other hand, perhaps in some cities they
went much earlier.
I agree with Lee that, if Silk is the only person on the Whorl with
gifts of this sort, this implies that Viron is special and was seen by
Pas as such. But I find this improbable; I think it has _become_
special because of Quetzal, who did not allow the news of Pas's death
to get through, and so made it a safe place for the Plan to be
reactivated in due course. So I would contrapose, and say that there
were probably multiple embryos of this kind.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
I don't think it is likely Silk would ever have lived his life as a
humble augur. Assuming Silk is the one Tussah was thinking of when
he said "my son shall be Calde after me", he new that his abilities
would carry him to the top wherever he was placed. His mother had
expected him to go into government. I think the only reason he was
placed in the Quarter was because Quetzal knew (and Remora
suspected) who he was and put him there to hide him.<br>
<br>
It is unlikely that Silk was originally the only one with gifts of
his sort. However, he might have been the last. Or there might be
others in plain sight. They would undoubtably be persons in
positions of leadership--leadership gained without certification or
struggle. His gift was the ineffable power of leadership. Silk had
qualities that Urth scientists had quantified as those that caused
others to follow him, that is leadership. Typhon, a test tube baby
himself, probably had those enhancements as well. He had that "voice
of command" and telepathic ability. It's implied that the embryos
were granted disparate abilities, but it is hard to imagine that
anyone would have thought only one with Silk's would be necessary.
By the the time of the evacuation, the human embryos had all been
lost. Perhaps, they were all located beneath Viron because it was
the Cargo most like the Commonwealth. Or perhaps Viron's embryos
were raided last of all. Some animal embryos survived. <br>
<br>
The relevant citations are below:<br>
<blockquote>"We [colonists] had shared out everything when we
landed, we who had come from Old Viron and the new people, the
sleepers, the ones who had slept three hundred years in the
caverns of the Whorl. Do you know about them, Mora? Their memories
had been tampered with, like Mamelta's, so they were confused in
strange ways. [snip] The tools and the seeds and the frozen
embryos, though there weren't many of those. No human embryos at
all. They'd been taken, every one of them. Special talents, you
see-untamed and unpredictable abilities that were supposed to help
us; but they had been taken by those who had broken the seals.
Taken and sold, long ago. [...] Silk had been one of them. Silk
had been our leader. That was his talent, leadership. People
trusted and followed him, and he tried-I tried very hard, Mora,
not to mislead them, not to lead them astray and betray them. But
Silk had remained behind in the Whorl with Hyacinth, and it almost
destroyed us."<br>
IGJ, Chap 10<br>
</blockquote>
-------------<br>
<blockquote>"There were human embryos among their supplies, ancient
embryos preserved by cold far beyond that of the coldest winter
nights. Sometimes the looters simply left those embryos. Sometimes
they wantonly destroyed them, and sometimes they took and sold
them, packing them in ice in an attempt to preserve them until
they could be implanted. [...] There were human embryos as well.
There were also seeds, kept frozen like the embryos, so that they
would sprout even after hundreds of years; but it is with the
human embryos that you and I have to do, because Mucor was such an
embryo. So was Patera Silk. I set out to explain Mucor, but there
would be no Mucor—or so I believe—without Patera Silk. Nor would
either of them exist without Pas, who was called Typhon on the
Short Sun Whorl.” <br>
RttW, Chap 6<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Personally I find it enigmatic that the Rajan claims here that
"there would be no Mucor without Patera Silk". <br>
<br>
---------------<br>
<blockquote>
<p class="para1">“When Pas [...] decided to send mortals to the
whorls beyond the Short Sun Whorl, he used no less than three
separate means. Some he sent as sleepers, unconscious in tubes
of thin glass until they were awakened by the breaking of the
glass. Some—your ancestors, Hound, and mine—he simply set down
here inside the<em> Whorl.</em> And some he sent as frozen
embryos, the products of carefully controlled matings in his
workshops.”<br>
RttW, Chap 6<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="para1">For those who say Silk was a test tube baby and not
a clone, here is your confirmation.<br>
</p>
<p class="para1">------------------------<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="para1">“ 'To colonize Blue and Green, Pas had to make
certain that some human beings reached them alive. He pretty
well assured that by dividing us into the two groups—ourselves,
and the sleepers. If the sleep process, whatever it was,
couldn’t keep them alive for three hundred years, we would
supply colonists. If we were wiped out by some disease as you
suggested, the sleepers could be roused by Mainframe, or by the
chems that Pas put in this whorl as well. But though our
surviving until we reached Blue and Green was necessary, it was
not sufficient. We had to survive on those whorls afterward.
Blue is a hospitable one; we are our own worst enemies there.
Green is much harsher. It’s where the inhumi breed, and there
are diseases and dangerous animals. Pas felt we ordinary people
might not be able to deal with those, so he took steps to see
that we’d have some extraordinary ones as well, people like
Mucor, who can send out her spirit without dying; and people
like Silk, who was the sort of leader we weave legends about but
seldom get—or deserve, I might add.”<br>
</p>
<p class="para1">Hound stared at the fire before he spoke. 'You
said most of those embryos had been stolen or destroyed.<br>
</p>
<p class="para1">'I’m afraid so.'<br>
</p>
<p class="para1">'Does that mean we’ll fail?' </p>
<p class="para1">'Perhaps. On Green at least.' </p>
<p class="para1">'I’d like to go. Am I crazy? I’ve never felt this
way way before.' </p>
<p class="para1">'The crossing is very dangerous—I don’t deny
that. But you and Tansy might make a better life for yourselves
and your children on Blue than you will ever have here, and you
would be doing the will of Pas.' </p>
<p class="para1">'Not Blue,' Hound said. 'I want to go to Green. I
want to go where I’m needed, Horn.' </p>
<p class="para1">[...] 'You’re a brave man.' </p>
'I’m not! I know I’m not. But—but . . .[...] But I’m steady, and
I’ve got a good head on my shoulders, and I don’t drink or get so
angry I ruin everything. I’m no troublemaker. I can work with my
hands, and I drive a hard bargain. They could use me. I know they
could!' ”<br>
RttW, Chap 6<br>
</blockquote>
<p class="para1">I think the meaning of this is that the engineered
embryos are not the only humans that count. That people like Hound
are a more valuable resource.<br>
</p>
<p class="para1">u+16b</p>
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