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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=dstockhoff@verizon.net
href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">David Stockhoff</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="font-color: black"><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">On
11/21/2011 2:04 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:<BR>> > Actually I’m using it to
shoot down a theory in which Horn did die. <BR>> > But it does work fine
with my theory of what happened in the pit which <BR>> > I posted earlier.
It’s not very dependent on when the long-nosed man <BR>> >
appeared.<BR><BR>> Correct. It doesn't appear to depend on anything. As far
as I can <BR>> tell---you haven't actually posted it.<BR></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV>I posted it today in a reply to James. I think I had it in a couple
of posts. Here it is again anyway:</DIV>
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<DIV>Horn fell in and was badly concussed. [As with Auk before him, this was the
prelude to a mystical evolution, but that’s not germane to the episode, it’s
just a trope that Wolfe recycles.] The Neighbours did their best to help him but
they live in another dimension and can’t move anything physical or bring him
water. What they did was touch his forehead with a mental amplifier that
temporarily gave him the ability to astrally travel and get help. Unfortunately
he went to Nettle who could not help him and indeed became frightened, thinking
I suppose that he was a ghost or inhumu. </DIV>
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<DIV>The only other human or quasi-human entity on the island at that time was
Seawrack (Krait may have been hanging around already, but even if the Neighbours
knew that, they wouldn’t have expected him to help). It is possible that they
didn’t recognise Seawrack as human. It’s also possible that they tried to
communicate with her but she fled. We know she is terrified of Neighbour
constructions at least – it’s probable that she is even more terrified of
Neighbours. </DIV>
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<DIV>It was this abandonment of Horn due to her fear that she is rationalising.
Of course the simple scenario that she is ignorant of human life and ordinary
death – everyone she has met has quickly died and stayed dead – is also
perfectly possible.</DIV>
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<DIV>It was his experience with the mental amplifier that initiated Horn’s
subsequent development of extraordinary psychic powers. We already see that he
has changed when he is going with Krait to find Seawrack – he sees the world
with “a sharpness of detail born of a consciousness of detail”. He’s changed –
but nothing about the change is the sort of thing we might particularly expect
to associate with a Neighbour psyche – affinity with trees, consciousness of
other dimensions, feeling he’s missing limbs, whatever. </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>He doesn’t develop superpowers just like that, it requires other events and
experiences – his experiences on Green, his death, his experiments on inhumi
which he is *contemplating carrying out in the future* during his time as Rajan
of Gaon.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>Anyway, that’s my working theory for the moment. I think it fits the facts
and involves the swallowing of fewer camels than scenarios in which Horn died in
the pit.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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