> This may not be a flaw (there are possible ways to explain it, I suppose), but as I went back and reread "Ironman" I wondered why the statues were depections of both male and female humans. Since all three Envoys were male, why would the aliens have any reason to suspect the existance of a second sex? Their physiology was obviously extremely, well, alien to our own, and the concept of two genders may have been completely foreign to them.
> Anyway, that's my guess.

It looks like I did not interpret the statues that way.

My deduction was that the aliens were creating the statues both as warnings to others and as a *commentary* on what they thought of the human race. The fact that they always preceded the ship's arrival was clearly a slap in the face -- it meant 1) the aliens could understand human math/language, enough to calculate the next target system; 2) they already knew enough about humans that they didn't want anything to do with them. So if they knew something about humans, it wouldn't be surprising that they might also know about our dual gender physiology.

Looking at it on the metaphorical level (hey, why not?), the back-to-back statue is reminiscent of Janus, the two-faced Roman god. In English parlance, "two-faced" means deceitful and untrustworthy. That's why I interpreted the statues as a "commentary" of the esteem to which the aliens regarded the Envoys. I don't know if Dave intended it in that fashion but it impressed me, anyway. :-)

Wolfspirit

P.S. Dave, I sent you some more email regarding your previous response, please check it out.