Atdtda28: Sentenced to blind passage, 789-791

[Paul Nightingale]

Parting, Kit and Prance wonder what happened to the mission (787).
Subsequently, Kit "fall[s] in with a band of brodyagi" (788), then
"follow[s] the sound" that leads him to the railway: this in turn will allow
him, retrospectively, to make sense of the soundtrack that has accompanied
his progress (788-789). Here, as the new section opens, "Kit proceed[s] ...
as if there were no doubt as to his way" (789); and then "[finds] himself in
a clearing above a meandering river". From what he has heard, and had to
make sense of, to what he can see: "... a plume of steam from a riverboat
was just visible". Progress "through the dark forests"; and then, "[a]t
first light", some kind of outlet.

And then, as Kit emerges from the darkness, "stroll[ing] into the
firelight", he is "[u]naware of how he look[s]" and has to be identified,
given an identity. From "no doubt as to his way" when travelling blind
through the unmapped forests, to Fleetwood's "I know him". Later, Kit's
response to "I know him" will come with the firelight fading: "There was
just enough light from the fire to see the despair in Fleetwood's face ..."
(790). 

Fleetwood offers an account of "something ... in Italy"; and thereby
separates the Kit he addresses here from the Kit who was an eye-witness
(Fleetwood: "Apparently ..."). Fleetwood is also "seeking ... a hidden
railroad existing so far only as shadowy rumor". This "rumor", or form of
words, is given substance by Kit's certainty: "That must have been ..." etc.
Here, Kit can voice the certainty (an eye witness 'I know ...' as opposed to
Fleetwood's hearsay account) that he must deny when Fleetwood is speaking of
his father in Italy. As they talk on, a map produced, Kit becomes
authoritative, completing Fleetwood's sentence to identify Shambhala (790).
In the previous section Kit fails ("now the word did not occur to him", 788)
to say the word "vector" when Topor seems to suggest it as Fleetwood seems
to suggest "Shambhala" here. Fleetwood has invoked the past, their previous
meeting, eg: "I thought there had to be some portal into another world ... I
was possessed by the dream of a passage through an invisible gate" (164).
Subsequently, on 165: "It seems all I'm looking for now is movement, just
for its own sake, what you fellows call the vector, I guess". 

In 55.14, Fleetwood has become a "self-pitying loudmouth" (790); Kit can
"see the despair in [his] face, despair like a corrupt form of hope". If
Fleetwood believes the Event might allow him to change the judgement made of
him, that he is guilty of "idle tourism", for Kit he remains a "so-called
explorer". Fleetwood speaks of destiny; Kit prefers "too much sense of
privilege". If Colfax has been "set ... free" (789) by his father's actions,
"meant for" family life, Fleetwood "can only keep moving", an echo of the
earlier "movement, just for its own sake". Perhaps he should be 'unmoved' by
disinheritance, given that his sense of self never depended on being a Vibe
heir, eg: "They don't actually know I'm here ..." etc (164).