From: Charles Dye <raster@highfiber.com>
Subject: (urth) Plumbing the depths
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 10:50:58

"Greene, Carlton" <CGreene2@hunton.com> writes:

>It also raises some rather odd toxicology questions -- could a normal human
>being really walk around for as long as she did with a belly full of lead
>shot without suffering brain damage or, at the very least, a really bad
>tummy ache?

Dorcas *does* have a bellyache -- she tells Severian as much in Chapter 28
of Shadow.  She attributes it to hunger, which may be largely correct.

How much lead would it take to sink a body?  Several pounds, I would think;
certainly more than just the two bullets Dorcas vomits up.  What has
happened to all that lead?  She must have lost most of it before Severian's
arrival; otherwise she never would have been able to escape from the Lake
of Birds.  The old man poling the boat suggests that the dead can spit up
their weights, but that doesn't make sense.  How would lead get out of a
corpse?

By an odd coincidence, the next person we meet on the Lake of Birds is a
known grave robber.

>I prefer my women unleaded, thank you.

My guess is that Dorcas has been mostly un-leaded before Severian meets her.
Presumably, most of the remaining sling-stones would be passed normally.

raster@highfiber.com



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