From: Dan Rabin <danrabin@a.crl.com>
Subject: (whorl) [blue, spoilers] Intelligent inhumi and Neighbors
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 19:55:51 

I was thinking along the same lines as Alex David Grace--that the inhumi
somehow derive their intelligence from their intelligent diet.  We've been
told they risk a lot in traveling between Green and Blue.  An Englishman
might *prefer* poulet de Bresse to domestic English chicken, but how many
would swim the Channel to get it if boats were expensive high technology?

I'm also wondering if the departure of the Neighbors to "a better place"
has anything to do with the inhumi.  Blue seems to be a pretty nice place
except for the Bloodsuckers From The Green Planet (if this were 1953,
that's how the movie would be entitled).

Perhaps it was the departure of the Neighbors that stepped up the pressure
for the inhumi to find another similar race.

It's also interesting that Krait has to ask Horn about Quetzal--the latter
isn't some sort of famous inhumi hero for bringing a whorl-load of fresh
cattle.  Come to think of it, the inhumi could only have known of Quetzal's
attempt to enter the Whorl, not his role in promoting the exodus, unless
there were other spies.

Also come to think of it, why does Krait want to sneak aboard the lander?
He seems to know of the plot, but he is not regarded as an enemy by the
other inhumi on board (which seems to rule out some sort of factional
dispute).  Or maybe we just can't understand inhumi at all (though "Horn"
seems to have made a good start).

  -- Dan Rabin



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