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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=gerry@bindweed.com
href="mailto:gerry@bindweed.com">Gerry Quinn</A> </DIV>
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<DIV>> As for the mermaid’s kiss, the fact remains that Baldanders doesn’t
need it. </DIV>
<DIV>> How the kiss would have worked, I don’t know – perhaps Juturna’s
saliva </DIV>
<DIV>> contains nanomachines that would have restructured Severian’s body for
</DIV>
<DIV>> underwater living, or perhaps Wolfe would have been content to leave
the</DIV>
<DIV>> matter unexplained. But Baldanders already has his
gills, hidden in plain</DIV>
<DIV>> sight by Wolfe as he likes to do.</DIV>
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<DIV>And (I should have noted) Juturna has no antigravity belt, and she could
certainly have benefited from one. Nor, if I recall correctly, does
Severian mention any gills, though I suppose it may be that his eyes were drawn
elsewhere. The technologies, magicks or whatever are different. </DIV>
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<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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