Gideon

Roy C. Lackey · 13 Jan 2009, 06:36 · from 2009-January.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:36:35 -0600
Subject: (urth) Gideon
References: <496B4052.3040700 at gmail.com> <496BADBA.6070203 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004b01c97549$4b6bfb00$0bd14a0c@rclackey>

Dave Tallman wrote:
> At the end of /An Evil Guest/ Cassie is heading to Woldercan with a
> strong desire to bring Wally back. Suppose she learns the secret of how
> to properly execute hops from there which will take her back in time, so
> that she arrives before she started. Suppose also that she cannot
> restore her enhanced star power. She might attempt to get close to her
> original self in order to have a chance to warn Reis and save his life.
> She may have become a werewolf as a disguise.
>
> Here are some indications:
>
>    1. Werewolves redistribute their mass (p. 99). Margaret is a small
>       woman (54). Cassie in the end is thinner than she used to be (p.
>       299).
>    2. Other forms than wolves, dogs, and leopards are possible (p. 99).
>       How about a different-looking human?
>    3. Coming back to the part she wouldn't have access to much money,
>       other than selling the hopper without a legitimate registration.
>       Margaret was poor.

A hopper is worth a lot of money, even on the black market.

>    4. Margaret gets Cassie's sandwich too fast (pp. 54-57). There's only
>       a little dialog and no wait time before she appears with the white
>       bag. If she knew in advance what the order would be she could get
>       it before they spoke.

The sandwich was a *hot* pastrami. The coffee would have been hot, too. And
why wouldn't she have known about the extra dressing and straw?

[snip]
> There is contrary evidence in her standard breakfast of yougurt and
> fruit (p. 186), since Cassie said she never wanted to eat fruit again
> (p. 288). However, she might endure that as part of her role and to keep
> her weight and expenses down.

Reis had looked into Margaret's background (122), and he had the best
sources money could buy.

> Cassie's hope to change the past seems to have been defeated by time
> paradoxes. If she warned Reis she wasn't believed. Chase seems to have
> spotted her for a werewolf and gotten the FBI to arrest her, keeping her
> from doing more at a critical time.

I think you're probably right about Chase getting her out of the way, but I
think he did that because he thought she was a spy for Reis. (171)

> At least she got the chance to see
> Wally one more time, when he came to retrieve the gold bracelet. She got
> to try the "tiny stupid thing" that was "a lot of trouble."

If Margaret had tried to tell Reis that she was really Cassie, she could
have mentioned Rian and Klauser and King Kanoa and the coming diamond
bracelet and many other things that should have given him pause to believe
her, particularly since he was checking up on her past anyway.

-Roy

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