If an extraterrestrial spy were to ask unsuspecting human beings to talk about their earliest memories, how much might they unwittingly disclose about life on Earth by referring to details that they take for granted? You lived with your parents and other family members in a house on a street and went to the shops in a car or a bus - etc.
When van Rijn gets Thea Beldaniel talking about her very earliest memory, she refers to one of her master's sons, Isthayan. By searching the blog for this name, Isthayan (scroll down), I found that I had already quoted Thea's revelation twice. Van Rijn's knowledge of the Shenna goes from zero to quite a lot in a single paragraph.
Of course, he meets resistance. She breaks off and, when he tries to discuss what he describes as "'...safe things. For instance, if you babies didn't come off no colonizer ship, then where?'" (XIX, p. 532), she runs. But he is making progress.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Old Nick certainly had a shrewd grasp of both human and non-human psychologies! As we see in other stories, such as "Territory."
Sean
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