AEG clones

Roy C. Lackey · 14 Dec 2008, 22:29 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:29:09 -0600
Subject: (urth) AEG clones
References: <005701c95dd1$a39a0d60$8fd24a0c@rclackey>
	<4944FB5F.2000409 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005b01c95e3b$653abf00$4ccf4a0c@rclackey>

Dave Tallman quoted and wrote:
> > Diplomacy? Cassie had seen him in the audience (53), and at the cast
party
> > he said he had been there. (66) So was he lying then or now? Sure, his
first
> > sight of her could have been on vid; he demonstrated the capability to
her
> > three months later in his car. But Gid had put the glamour on her less
than
> > twenty-four hours before that final performance. So who did she see in
the
> > audience?
> >
> Ries was telling her a lot of lies at that point; his accounts of the
> gold bracelet were highly contradictory. He didn't know that she knew he
> could walk unseen, or that she caught a glimpse of him at the play. The
> lie kept explanations simple. The alternative of a clone (artificially
> aged to be Bill's double and also taught to walk unseen) is too much.

Why put himself in a position to be caught in a lie that served no purpose?
Why did Wolfe put that bit of conversation in the story?

> > The waitress at Rusterman's who looked like Alexis Cabana asked Cassie
if
> > she was really there to meet Mr. Rosenquist, and said that he was a
friend
> > of Mr. Rusterman. When Cassie asked if there was a real Mr. Rusterman,
she
> > said: "He's the company president. There was another Mr. Rusterman years
and
> > years ago, and he opened the first one. But now this Mr. Rusterman is
> > president of our whole chain. He's a cousin or something." (118)  Cousin
> > indeed. We know that Rusterman is really Reis.
> >
> The waitress may be repeating what she was told. We know that the real
> founder of Rusterman's was Marko Vukcic, the childhood friend of Nero
> Wolfe in Montenegro.

I'm not familiar with Nero Wolfe, so I can't address that part. But Cassie
went on to address Reis as Wade, which was Rusterman's given name. He said,
"Call me Wally, please. I prefer it. Here." (120) Had Reis merely wanted to
own a restaurant chain, he could have bought it and kept the franchise name
but purchased it under some name other that Rusterman. That would have
avoided the whole "cousin" angle. Maybe someone felt it necessary to invent
the cousin story to offer a plausable reason for an uncanny resemblance
between company presidents. Or to explain why the current president had not
aged as much as he should have after "years and years".

Anyway, if there are no clones in the story, why did Wolfe bring up the
subject in the last chapter? If he hadn't, I wouldn't have brought this
topic up. I hate clone theories. <g>

-Roy

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