Cassie as the Ambassador's wife

Dave Tallman · 16 Sep 2009, 15:27 · from 2009-September.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:27:51 -0600
Subject: (urth) Cassie as the Ambassador's wife
In-Reply-To: <6E8EB03E2AB043F7B39AFADC12397FAD@eMachinePC>
References: <6E8EB03E2AB043F7B39AFADC12397FAD@eMachinePC>
Message-ID: <4AB103F7.8080008 at gmail.com>

>
> Aside from the mess, it would make hash of any timeline of ambassadors. If
> significant time-travel can be caused just by going to Woldercan, then Chase
> and Reis might well have returned to Earth as long ago or as recently as you
> please. The President never mentioned such a phenomenon.
>   
It must be a trick unknown to the President, perhaps only learned by 
those who go to Woldercan. One has to go a long way out into space, 
outside the galaxy (that's the reason the Milky Way looks like a little 
band of bright stars on p. 301). Perhaps the further one hops, the more 
time displacement is possible. Perhaps it's to get to a region where the 
laws of physics are even more different than they are on Woldercan (p. 300).

At any rate, it's not possible that the location in the final paragraph, 
from which Cassie says "Come back to me, Wally!" is part of her original 
trip to Woldercan.  It takes twenty-something hops to get there (p. 
298). After five hops, she opens the package with the picture (p. 301). 
Sometime after this (at least five hops, probably more), "the sun was a 
yellow spark and the blue sphere of Earth less than nothing." So, about 
a quarter of the way to Woldercan, the sun is still a distinctly visible 
star. In fifteen or so more hops she gets outside the galaxy? 
Impossible. This is a new trip, with a lot more fuel. What is its 
purpose? I say it's the start of her trip back into time, to get Wally 
back again.

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