(urth) chris' last name *pirate freedom*

[Matthew King]

On Nov 27, 2007, at 5:53 PM, Duncan Truter wrote:

> Hi. I edited my post a couple of times before I posted it, and managed
> to edit out the words 'time travel'. If Chris has done / will do it
> two times, why not three?
> Sorry for mangling of message, I get this as a digest which doesn't
> allow for easy replying.
>
> someone wrote:
> "
> Well, a bit of wikipediaing leads me to guess that the pirate  
> adventures
> take place somewhere between the 1630s and 1670s. Isn't that a bit  
> later
> than Columbus?
> "
>

Other than there being a man in the Caribbean with the name  
Christopher, what evidence from the book suggests Columbus?  I cannot  
think of any.

A third time travel jaunt would necessarily take place entirely  
outside the bounds of the narrative.  Unless Fr. Chris is lying, we  
know most of what happened on his personal timeline: from his  
father's move to Cuba, the time slip backwards, through his pirate  
career, to the time slip forward, through his tenure as a priest, to  
his imminent departure for free Cuba.  He intends at the end of his  
confession to become Brother Ignacio at the school/monastery.  Fr.  
Chris knows that Brother Ignacio follows young Chris in the timeslip  
backward, and then Ignacio tools around for a few years waiting for  
Chris and Novia to show up.

Between Ignacio and young Chris's initial drift back, we (and Fr.  
Chris) don't really know what Ignacio was doing.  But can you fit the  
whole career of Christopher Columbus into those years?

Another point against, one that I think is very important to the  
simplicity of the overall plot, is that more time travel would  
require additional time slip events.  In the narrative, there are  
only two:  a backwards slip, and a forwards slip.  Young Chris is  
surprised by the backwards slip, but Fr. Chris, as Brother Ignacio,  
hitches a ride on it.  Years later, Captain Chris slips forward; so  
far as we can tell, he is alone.