AEG: Bill's wives

Roy C. Lackey · 01 Oct 2009, 05:52 · from 2009-September.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 00:52:13 -0500
Subject: (urth) AEG: Bill's wives
References: <001901ca4137$b3e1b200$2dce4a0c@rclackey>
	<4AC36470.9000904 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003501ca425b$56d5f4c0$c8ce4a0c@rclackey>

Dave Tallman wrote:

[snip]
> I'm reminded of Margaret easily locating the bracelet in
> the hotel safe and knowing the combination when Cassie had forgotten she
> even used the safe. Perhaps she didn't forget -- it was Margaret who put
> them away for her. If so, Margaret could have taken them that night, and
> she refrained.

There is an odd bit of dialogue in the breakfast scene the next morning,
p-153, Margaret speaking first:
________________
"You ought to get a thing at the bank, Miss Casey. A safety deposit."
"I will, only back home. Not here."
"That fits perfectly." Zelda nodded to herself. "Thank you, Margaret."
"Fits what?"
"In a minute. Here's the waitress, and you haven't even looked."
__________________

What was Zelda alluding to? She never brought it up again.

[snip]
> None of this time-travel gives Bill any foreknowledge of his death. His
> description of an execution scene to Cassie was accurate (this is how
> they executed people on the island, with the "permission" of the Queen),
> but I don't think he knew at the time it would be applied to himself.
> This is just dramatic irony.

I think he did know that some version of him would die that death. The "seat
of  justice" where Cassie sat while Bill was killed was used by the "high
king or high queen" to "announce to our assembled nation the justice of the
Sky Gods" (282). So I don't think garden-variety executions were performed
there.

James Wynn wrote:
[snip]
> I still think the idea of a Woldercon imposters (maybe
> three of them) stands a good chance of fitting in here somewhere.

I would like for that to work, too. But the text doesn't give me enough to
prove it, or even make a good case. I don't like to have to resort to messy
time travel to unravel the plot of AEG, but we may be stuck with it.

-Roy

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