On Blue's waters

That seemed rather short to me-I would have imagined that such a rise would require fifteen years if not more. If the speculation I am recalling tonight had been correct, in other words if Patera Quetzal had in fact crossed the abyss to the Whorl in the same way that other inhumi go from Green to Blue, it followed that it had been at least sixty-eight years since the last conjunction. It appeared then, as it still does, that no conjunction is imminent; from which I concluded that the period between conjunctions had to be considerably longer, say one hundred years.

Even then, I realized that other explanations were possible and might be correct. The landers were intended to return to the Whorl for more colonists. Patera Quetzal could have boarded a much earlier lander that did so, a lander whose departure was unknown to the Crew, and perhaps even to Pas, as well as to us in Old Viron.

A third possibility (I thought) was that a group of inhumi had built a lander of their own, in which they had traveled to the Whorl, and that after arriving they had separated to hunt.

The fact of the matter, as I would have had to explain to Seawrack, was that we knew frighteningly little about them. They did not appear to make weapons for themselves, or to build houses or boats, or any such thing-but appearances may be deceiving. General Saba’s pterotroopers had refused to fly wearing their packs, and in fact carried nothing beyond their slug guns and twenty rounds of ammunition. In the same way, the Fliers carried only their PMs (which actually helped them fly, rather than burdening them) and their instruments. It might be, as I thought that night, that the inhumi were even less willing to weight themselves with equipment. They flew much faster and much farther than Rani’s pterotroopers had, after all.

Farther even than the fliers had.

When I wrote last night I lacked the energy to say all that I had intended, which was a good deal. Regarding what I set down with detachment this morning, I can see that most of it was not worth the labor. My readers-should persons so singular ever exist-can speculate for themselves, and their speculations may be better than mine. What I came near to saying, and should have said because it is important and true, was that we on Blue had very little knowledge of the nature and abilities of the inhumi. Raided, we could not retaliate, and although they clearly knew a great deal about us, we knew next to nothing about them. They came from Green. They could fly, could speak as we did, and could counterfeit us. They were strong, swam well, drank our blood, and usually (but not always) fought without weapons, although they preferred stealth and deception to fighting. Few people on Blue knew more than that, and many did not know that much.

Even then I knew a bit more, having talked with Quetzal, and with Silk and the present Prolocutor, who had known Quetzal much better than I ever did. I knew that the inhumi were able to counterfeit the whole array of human emotions, and possibly even felt them just as we did; and that their deceptions were based on a comprehensive understanding of the myriad ways in which men and women think and act. I suspected that they were capable of deceiving the very gods, since Echidna knew the Prolocutor was present at her theophany, but did not appear to realize that he was an inhumi. (Of course, she may simply not have cared, or not seen any significant difference between them and ourselves.)

On the other hand, I felt quite certain that when Mucor had described Patera Remora as speaking to “the one who isn’t there” when he was coadjutor, she did not mean that he prayed but rather that to her roving spirit Patera Quetzal did not exist.

Seawrack and I were soon to become much more familiar with the inhumi; but I am writing here of what I knew and guessed at the time, errors and all.

My advisors, who are all good, well-intentioned men, are forever suggesting that I get down to business, although they never phrase it quite so baldly. If action must be taken, they want it taken now, immediately. Sinew was like that, too. When I decided that we ought to build a new boat, he wanted to lay the keel that very day, and would have been happy, I am sure, if he could have finished it that day as well. In Sinew this impatience was the effect of youth; it was something that he would get over, and indeed I believe that he has largely gotten over it already.

In Rajya Mantri, Hari Mau, and the rest, I think it must come from a tradition of warfare. Immediate action is the soul of war, as I learned many years ago by observing General Mint. It is not the soul of peace.