Thoughts on Holmes Sherlock

I have to confess, I was slightly disappointed by the trajectory of the story as it differed from the expectations I had in mind when reading the first paragraph. However, it worked well as a science fiction short story depicting the perspective of an alien society trying to understand humanity through literature. It's interesting that despite many aspects of the hwarhath people being opposite of humanity, in general, like homosexuality vs. heterosexuality and the reversal of some key gender roles, there are many similarities between them in attitude and judgement and in their aversion to change. For example, the hwarhath's disgust concerning heterosexuality and the initial routes proposed so logically to deal with Nam's situation, namely suicide, were shocking to me and reminiscent on attitudes we had (or still have in some places) concerning homosexuality.

As far as how this story fits into the realm of science fiction, aside from the obvious alien perspective, it seems to fit the definition of science fiction being a means to observe and comment on humanity from an outsider's perspective. In this case, the hwarhath were more like humanity than they realized and there is something to be learned from them. I think Doctor Mel says something to this effect near the end:

"These are humans, and they're imaginary!"
"We can still learn from them. We can always learn from other people."

Other thoughts? Ideas?

On a side note, I don't think Nam covered up her tracks terribly well. Everything she did seemed to draw attention to the fact that there was something suspicious about her disappearance, from the trail of photographs that she had given to basically everyone in town to the wiped hard drive and suspicious missing body at the place where she supposedly died. But, I suppose that wasn't really the point of the story. I think what I found lacking in the story was more intellectual detective work on Kla's part. I expected a more difficult path to uncovering the mystery.