Using his spacesuit as a diving suit, Jong sees "...coraloids...," (p. 233) not corals, on the sea bottom. The white "seabirds" (p. 215) should be described as ornithoids. We would not want to see recognizable seagulls if the story were filmed. The "...great tiger-striped fish..." (p. 216) should be called a piscoid. It would have to be CGI'ed.
Jong must retrieve a Kithman's mortal remains so that they can be given a Kith funeral, launched on an "...orbit into the sun." (p. 231) Momentarily, Jong wonders whether his dead friend would prefer to stay under the sea, "...lulled to the end of the world." (p. 233) Yes if he were a sea-dweller but no because he had been a starfarer. What we do with the dead is entirely a matter of local customs and traditions.
"The knowledge exploded in Jong. For a century of seconds he stood alone with it." (p. 234)
This is one of many Andersonian moments of realization. I do not think that I have noted this one before. "...a century of seconds..." must mean a short time that seemed like a long time. In fact, one hundred seconds, over a minute and a half, would be a long time to stand with a realization.
Back in the spaceboat, Jong, looking through a port:
"...watched the sea, molten silver beneath him, dwindle as the sky hardened and the stars trod forth." (p. 239).
Sliver sea, then sky and stars, a succinct summary of the themes of this volume.
7 comments:
I think people living on a planet would just slap the nearest label on what they saw, unless it was very, very different.
CF the differential use of "elk" in America and Europe. English colonists in the 17th century didn't realize that what they saw was an "elk" so they used a native word, "moose".
That was because moose/elk had been extinct in England for a long time. They had only a vague idea of what an 'elk' was.
Later they slapped "elk" on a completely different animal because it was bigger than a deer, and they knew elk were bigger, so...
Kaor, Paul!
One problem I thought of is wondering if even 20,000 years would be long enough for the colonists of this planet to change as Jong thought had happened. Maybe, maybe not.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is discussed in the story.
I am just going out to the sf group.
Paul.
Sean: depends on the intensity of the selective pressure. We're not too different from our ancestors of 20,000 years ago -- we have consistent overbites and we're a bit less robust in the bones, but that's about it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Or even that much different, outwardly, from Neanderthals. And, given the mild and gentle environment of the planet seen in "The Horn of Time..." the colonists of that world faced far less environmental pressure acting on that selectivity than we do on Earth, with its often violently changeable climate.
Ad astra! Sean
Oh, we're different from Neanderthals; quite different genetically, and in body form. Neanderthals had much bigger bones than we do; they'd be about 5x stronger than a modern human, and at least 2x as strong as a contemporary specimen of h. sap. sap. They lived in much smaller social units, too.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I don't disagree! But, if we can go by hypothetical reconstructions of what Neanderthals looked like, they didn't look all that different from many modern humans, when neatly barbered and dressed in clothes.
Ad astra! Sean
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