From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Long Sun puzzles
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 00:01:11 -0500

Crush asked:
>Numero Two-o
>In the next chapter (11) Silk gets Chenille to admit that she killed Orpine
>and they talk about how and why she got the knife. Then Silk asks Chenille:
>
>"'Is Doctor Crane the friend you mentioned?'
>'No. That's somebody younger. Don't make me tell you who, unless you want
me
>to get hurt."
>
>I'm probably losing it but I've re-read this the murder scene over and over
>and I can't find anywhere Chenille mentions this male "friend". Could this
>be an editing mistake that was corrected in the paperback version?

Joe gave the correct answer for the first question. I don't think there is
an answer to the third. Even though Silk knows, intellectually, that Marble
is a machine, he can't seem to take the fact to heart. That anthropomorphic
streak in bios is just too wide and deep. 

For the second question: I have the paperback, and re-read from when Silk
first met Chenille to the quote above. You're right; she made no mention of
a male friend. It's a mistake. Wolfe may have become confused over who said
what to whom. A few pages before that quote (277), Silk was asking her about
her use of rust. He said that "Orchid and a friend who knows you have both
told me you use it, and neither has reason to lie." That "friend" of Silk's
is Auk, but Auk is also Chenille's friend. Auk is almost certainly the
"somebody younger" she fears might hurt her. Hurt her again actually, as he
had confessed to having done so before to Silk the evening before.

-Roy


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