By a process of elimination and by some positive inferences, Nicholas van Rijn deduces that the helmet beasts insert their cilia into the gorilloids' sphincters and that the two organisms thus linked form a single intelligence. These beings hid in their own zoo by separating into their two symbiotes. One positive clue was cabins with bunks for both: niches for gorilloids and cubbyholes for helmets.
In true future history style, these beings are appropriately referred to centuries later when Dominic Flandry encounters tripartite symbiotes. Flandry does not at this point refer to Nicholas van Rijn but does reveal that the planet of the Togru-Kon-Tanakh, the bipartite beings, is called Vanrijn! - which we had not known before.
Today has been taken up with a Catholic funeral and its aftermath. One friend of the deceased attended wearing his Jewish skullcap. I will shortly return to the same Community Center to meet two other sf fans and expect some of the family from the funeral still to be present. The deceased had had 13 children, 35 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.
A next project for this blog might be to reread and post about The Man Who Counts. I will also be reading for the first time the second Modesty Blaise novel, to be discussed on Comics Appreciation. Life continues to be a blast.
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