When Davis and his supporters withdraw from those who threaten them:
"The wind raved in coalsack streets." (p. 99)
The wind raves just as one woman has screamed and another has yelled.
"'I'm staking one hell of a lot on your really being a Man,' [Nelly Udall] said desolately, into the wind." (ibid.)
Speaking into the wind signifies that she has no definite answer as yet - although, as Davis has argued, if he really were a Monster, i.e., an alien, then it would make sense to let him go so that he could send the true Men to Atlantis.
Every time that I finish commenting on the wind, it blows back into narrative yet again. In Poul Anderson's fantasy works where the gods are real, we can imagine Aeolus sending the different kinds of winds out among the universes, including those where the gods never appear.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Except the Doctors, desperate to cling to power, did not want those true men coming to Atlantis.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is the point. By commanding the women to kill the supposed Monster, instead of asking him to take a message to the Men, the legate proved the Doctors' real intentions.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly!
Ad astra! Sean
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