A Tracing of Infiltration [5HC Spoilers]
I proceed with caution, believing there is a danger in applying anything from one of the novellas in The Fifth Head of Cerberus to one or both of the others. With that caveat out of the way, let me knit together the paradoxical union of Veil’s Hypothesis (from “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”) and Hagsmith’s “Verity” (from “V.R.T.”).
Veil’s Hypothesis goes something like this: shape-shifters on Ste. Anne, having killed all the French starcrosser people, “took their places and the ships” (23), so that all the people on the previously empty sister world of Ste. Croix are imitation humans. Let us first note that Veil’s is definitely a “pod-people” program: the shape-shifter can only imitate a person he or she has killed. In the majority reading, this is arguably the case for Victor; but it also implies that Victor’s mother has killed at least three people: a girl, a crone, and a beauty. Let us also note that Veil’s makes French families the most likely to be actually abo infiltrators.
Hagsmith’s statement, which I term a commonly-held “Verity,” is quoted here:
This “abo klutz” adage, seemingly necessary to the plot of “V.R.T.,” further complicates itself by defining as tools such diverse artifacts as shovels (per quote), rifles (for Victor), pens (for Victor), and dress buttons (for Victor’s abo mother). However, in a larger way it plays mischief with Veil’s Hypothesis in making all the faux-French colonists complete klutzes. But let us proceed with the supposition that the infiltration was more gradual than the “all at once” approach, allowing enough tool-use to build the original structures on Ste. Croix.
If this is true, it suggests that Ste. Croix has an “Eloi” caste of beautiful abo klutzes supported at essential levels by a “Morlock” caste of tool-using humans. To test this, tracking the seven cases of clones-at-large in the text (the four-armed mantis [59–60], the sweeper slave [61], the junior officer’s slave [137], the arresting trio [172], and Celestine Etienne [173], we see the clones at a variety of social stations. We observe that the arresting trio of the very secret police has a pistol among them, which seems to bolster the argument of tools for the competent, but I draw your attention to the junior officer at the planetary capital: his slave not only keeps the officer’s knife sharpened (140), but under direct order he uses the knife to cut the ropes on the dispatch box (137).
Given the “Running Blood” context, this tool-use seems significant, raising the possibility that the junior officer is an abo klutz: unable to sharpen a knife; unable to use a knife to cut rope; but covered by a master/slave protocol, complete with ritualistic slapping, operatic tears, and supine groveling.
Granted, the officer pens a letter (242–43), but we do not know the quality of his penmanship, and this long after he has admired the pages transcribed in “good clerical script” (164), i.e., written by a human. The officer is able to thread a tape recorder and operate it twice (139, 194), but perhaps the fact that a tape breaks on the second occasion (197) is due to his being a klutz.
“V.R.T.” has a couple of “Poe moments” on Ste. Croix that chill me with the Halloween weirdness that goes on without notice by the junior officer. By themselves these vignettes bring a “back of beyond” feeling from Ste. Anne straight into an urban setting on Ste. Croix, a hint that things are “abo weird” just below the placid surface, but now let us examine both incidents for tell-tale tool use. The first “Poe moment” is when the cemetery cat from Vienne intrudes (151), and the junior officer reaches for his pistol, but the cat leaps away before he can reveal his firearm skill, or lack thereof. The second “Poe moment” is when he notices a black bird has entered the room during his concentration (164), and when he tries to strike it with a broom, he significantly fails, whereupon he lets the bird stay.
If there is an Eloi/Morlock situation on Ste. Croix, then Hagsmith’s Verity, common on Ste. Anne, would be a state secret on Ste. Croix; and this seems to be the case. The plastic replicas of abo stone tools of Ste. Anne (10–11), used in the text to induce a debate between young David and Number Five, are the physical evidence of a lie, a forgery so convincing that neither boy in the debate says that abos cannot use tools. Number Five says the stone tools found are few in number because the abos mainly used non-stone tools like poison and nets (11); whereas David says they are few because their culture was more important to the abos (11–12). The simple, forged evidence of stone tools has effectively blocked off the whole concept of abos being klutzes.
In “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” Number Five claims Dr. Marsch is an abo, or a half-abo; in “V.R.T.” the public of Ste. Anne believes all the abos were exterminated, so they take such claims of abos and half-abos as a joke. This suggests that on Ste. Anne, Veil’s Hypothesis would be a state secret to be kept from the general public. That is, the Running Blood extermination, whether it is actually true or not, is an essential element to the “common sense” of society on Ste. Anne; just as the faked abo tools are a crucial part of the “common sense” on Ste. Croix.
(As an aside, there is some irony on leadership roles on Ste. Croix: in “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” Number Four laments his thwarted ambition of being a world leader; in “V.R.T.” it is revealed that at least three of his fifty clones are in the secret police. Seen together, these points suggest that the clone master is like the queen of an ant colony, focused only on the reproduction of tool-capable workers; while other specialized offspring serve as security agents.)
For a final observation, the Eloi/Morlock situation could explain the otherwise inexplicable naming conventions at Port Mimizon: street of sewers; street of maggots (eaters of the dead); street of charlatans (pretenders); the construction of a Cerberus statue (guardian of the dead) for 666 (the number of the beast). These infernal details could be cues of danger left behind by the earliest Morlock humans in an attempt to warn away humans visiting from other worlds.
Veil’s Hypothesis goes something like this: shape-shifters on Ste. Anne, having killed all the French starcrosser people, “took their places and the ships” (23), so that all the people on the previously empty sister world of Ste. Croix are imitation humans. Let us first note that Veil’s is definitely a “pod-people” program: the shape-shifter can only imitate a person he or she has killed. In the majority reading, this is arguably the case for Victor; but it also implies that Victor’s mother has killed at least three people: a girl, a crone, and a beauty. Let us also note that Veil’s makes French families the most likely to be actually abo infiltrators.
Hagsmith’s statement, which I term a commonly-held “Verity,” is quoted here:
Dr. Hagsmith: “No, not being really human . . . the abos can’t handle any sort of tool. They can pick them up and carry them about, but they can’t accomplish anything with them. That’s the test the French are supposed to have applied at the ford called Running Blood—stopped every man that passed and made him dig with a shovel.” (151)
This “abo klutz” adage, seemingly necessary to the plot of “V.R.T.,” further complicates itself by defining as tools such diverse artifacts as shovels (per quote), rifles (for Victor), pens (for Victor), and dress buttons (for Victor’s abo mother). However, in a larger way it plays mischief with Veil’s Hypothesis in making all the faux-French colonists complete klutzes. But let us proceed with the supposition that the infiltration was more gradual than the “all at once” approach, allowing enough tool-use to build the original structures on Ste. Croix.
If this is true, it suggests that Ste. Croix has an “Eloi” caste of beautiful abo klutzes supported at essential levels by a “Morlock” caste of tool-using humans. To test this, tracking the seven cases of clones-at-large in the text (the four-armed mantis [59–60], the sweeper slave [61], the junior officer’s slave [137], the arresting trio [172], and Celestine Etienne [173], we see the clones at a variety of social stations. We observe that the arresting trio of the very secret police has a pistol among them, which seems to bolster the argument of tools for the competent, but I draw your attention to the junior officer at the planetary capital: his slave not only keeps the officer’s knife sharpened (140), but under direct order he uses the knife to cut the ropes on the dispatch box (137).
Given the “Running Blood” context, this tool-use seems significant, raising the possibility that the junior officer is an abo klutz: unable to sharpen a knife; unable to use a knife to cut rope; but covered by a master/slave protocol, complete with ritualistic slapping, operatic tears, and supine groveling.
Granted, the officer pens a letter (242–43), but we do not know the quality of his penmanship, and this long after he has admired the pages transcribed in “good clerical script” (164), i.e., written by a human. The officer is able to thread a tape recorder and operate it twice (139, 194), but perhaps the fact that a tape breaks on the second occasion (197) is due to his being a klutz.
“V.R.T.” has a couple of “Poe moments” on Ste. Croix that chill me with the Halloween weirdness that goes on without notice by the junior officer. By themselves these vignettes bring a “back of beyond” feeling from Ste. Anne straight into an urban setting on Ste. Croix, a hint that things are “abo weird” just below the placid surface, but now let us examine both incidents for tell-tale tool use. The first “Poe moment” is when the cemetery cat from Vienne intrudes (151), and the junior officer reaches for his pistol, but the cat leaps away before he can reveal his firearm skill, or lack thereof. The second “Poe moment” is when he notices a black bird has entered the room during his concentration (164), and when he tries to strike it with a broom, he significantly fails, whereupon he lets the bird stay.
If there is an Eloi/Morlock situation on Ste. Croix, then Hagsmith’s Verity, common on Ste. Anne, would be a state secret on Ste. Croix; and this seems to be the case. The plastic replicas of abo stone tools of Ste. Anne (10–11), used in the text to induce a debate between young David and Number Five, are the physical evidence of a lie, a forgery so convincing that neither boy in the debate says that abos cannot use tools. Number Five says the stone tools found are few in number because the abos mainly used non-stone tools like poison and nets (11); whereas David says they are few because their culture was more important to the abos (11–12). The simple, forged evidence of stone tools has effectively blocked off the whole concept of abos being klutzes.
In “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” Number Five claims Dr. Marsch is an abo, or a half-abo; in “V.R.T.” the public of Ste. Anne believes all the abos were exterminated, so they take such claims of abos and half-abos as a joke. This suggests that on Ste. Anne, Veil’s Hypothesis would be a state secret to be kept from the general public. That is, the Running Blood extermination, whether it is actually true or not, is an essential element to the “common sense” of society on Ste. Anne; just as the faked abo tools are a crucial part of the “common sense” on Ste. Croix.
(As an aside, there is some irony on leadership roles on Ste. Croix: in “The Fifth Head of Cerberus,” Number Four laments his thwarted ambition of being a world leader; in “V.R.T.” it is revealed that at least three of his fifty clones are in the secret police. Seen together, these points suggest that the clone master is like the queen of an ant colony, focused only on the reproduction of tool-capable workers; while other specialized offspring serve as security agents.)
For a final observation, the Eloi/Morlock situation could explain the otherwise inexplicable naming conventions at Port Mimizon: street of sewers; street of maggots (eaters of the dead); street of charlatans (pretenders); the construction of a Cerberus statue (guardian of the dead) for 666 (the number of the beast). These infernal details could be cues of danger left behind by the earliest Morlock humans in an attempt to warn away humans visiting from other worlds.
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Stephen
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May 14, 2024 02:40PM
This seems right. So, to summarize, the Verity is correct, but Veil's Hypothesis is only partially correct, in that the replacement was partial, not complete.
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