(urth) eclipse

[Jeff Wilson]

Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> Marc Aramini wrote:
> 
>>>> I have had the suspicion that some cosmic body was being switched around
> at the eclipse -that aphetas planet was actualy switched with the moon,
> producing the increasingly fierce tides and making the moon seem bigger.
> There is a scene when severian is simming and looks up to feel watched from
> the moon.  Unfortunately I really need to read urth again.<<<
> 
>>>> of course the problem with this switching is the vast disparity in time
> between apu punchau and the new sun<<<
> 
> The bigger problem is that "aphetas planet", as you put it, is in a
> completely different universe from Lune.
> 
> -Roy

She does use of a sort of dimensional portal to deposit Severian back on 
the Ship, already back in Briah, and is visible to him for a while 
after. (URTH, late Ch 22 - early Ch 23)  He records seeing her in place 
of the moon while he scrounges among the wreckage of the flood in way 
similar to that earlier appearance. (can't get Amazon's "look inside" to 
let me check the chapter, but it's p. 340 out of 386 in the edition they 
offer just now)

In the earlier sequence, Severian is unable to avoid entering the portal 
and speculates it could be gravity or escaping air that forces him. If 
it's gravity, then it's possible that the Yesodis can pipe in their 
gravity as needed; if it's "just" air, they still may be able to bodily 
portal in planets to provide gravity, though I doubt they'd remove their 
own planet from Yesod.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >