Where was Rian born? (AEG Spoilers)

Roy C. Lackey · 12 Dec 2008, 05:59 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:59:51 -0600
Subject: (urth) Where was Rian born? (AEG Spoilers)
References: <491F49B4.9020906 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005301c95c1e$dcd09040$6acf4a0c@rclackey>

I recently got around to reading AEG, then went back and read all the posts
about it I had skipped. With those posts in mind--particularly Dave
Tallman's, because he has done most of the heavy lifting so far--I read the
book again, very s l o w l y, with attention to details.

Back on 11-15-08 Dave Tallman wrote:
> I now think that Norma Peiper was the wife who accompanied Reis to
> Woldercan (p. 301). There's no need to postulate a second wife, because
> the timing can be made to work with one:

I see no good reason to suppose Norma was ever married to Reis, but the
apparition of Vince on that island as some sort of manifistation of a
volcano gives me enough pause that I can't just dismiss it. Reis said he had
been married twice. (p.-275)

>    1. There is no mention of a child in that picture (p. 301). Rian was
>       probably conceived on Woldercan, or shortly before they arrived.

Rian must have been born on Earth years before Reis went to Woldercan. See
below.

>    2. Their son Rian is sixteen (p. 276),
>    3. The marriage only lasted two years(p. 176)

Well, Norma's marriage did.

>    4. Bill's appointment as ambassador to Woldercan only recently ended,
>       during the term of the current President (p. 19).
>    5. He has been back at least a year (to see Rian's football games, p.
>       277), probably more.

Right. Reis hired Gid for some job two years earlier (120), and the U.S.
Navy had been looking for the gold for two years (273). Reis had probably
been back for about three years.

>    6. He was appointed ambassador during Instrup's first term and
>       continued during his second term (pp. 15-16).
>    7. There was at least one other intervening President before the one
>       Chase talked to. He says "an earlier president" not "the previous
>       president" (p. 18).

No, there was no intervening president, as determined by the order of
ambassadors:

1st Ambassador, Bob Chase (296)
2nd Harold Klauser (18, 296)
3rd William Reis (277)
4th unnamed (222), who succeeded Reis and was replaced by
5th Gideon Chase (293)

>    8. So Bill served at least 12 years, before being replaced by the new
>       President's "own man" (p. 19).

Reis served just eight years. (95)

>    9. It would also be difficult to get much medical help for a child
>       with a defective heart valve (p. 277) in a place so remote that
>       even tampons are hard to get (p. 298).
>   10. "Nobody could cure him" (p. 26) implies lots of doctors, so we can
>       assume Rian was raised on Earth.
>   11. Norma must have taken Rian back to Earth and divorced Bill.
>   12. In the picture where he announces he will retire (p. 14), Reis
>       seems to be alone.

Right, but he had a wife when he came to Woldercan, per that picture you
mentioned on p.-301, but the wife wasn't in that picture either. Not
conclusive. I think Reis likely was divorced from his first wife before he
went to Woldercan, and she was left filthy rich. Rian's mother had to be
rich to have hired Gid to fix the boy's heart. (277) She probably stayed on
Earth to raise the sickly boy. The wife mentioned in the picture may have
been his second wife.

So, Rian would have been about five years old when Reis went to Woldercan.

But, we are left with the question of just when Gid cured the kid. If Reis
actually paid for it, that may have been the occasion, mentioned above, two
years earlier when he hired Gid for an unspecified consultation. Reis said
the boy was "very ill as a child." Is 14 too old to call him a child? I
suppose not.

Then there is a problem with Gid's age. Sharon said he looked to be in his
mid-thirties. (25) Klauser said he had been a "small boy" when he last saw
him. (297) 5 or 6 years old? But if you add up the elapsed ambassadorial
terms and add another 7-9 years to that, Gid should be only in his
mid-twenties. And he's a Ph.D. He seems to be older than the numbers allow.
And I don't think Wolfe made a mistake here. I think something is going on
with sequential time, as hinted at by the peculiar nature of ethermail
between Earth and Woldercan. Maybe travel between them has a warping effect?

-Roy

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