(urth) Gideon

[Roy C. Lackey]

Dave Tallman wrote:
> There's one more scene that takes on new meaning. On the hopper flight
> with Gib, Margaret pretends she has never hopped before and fakes a
> great fear of flying (pp. 154-156). It's an excuse to keep her eyes
> closed for the whole trip. She doesn't want Gib to see in her eyes how
> much she hates him, and to see the triumph in his look back at her.

Gil Corby was in the cargo space behind the seats, so I don't think there
was any danger of making eye contact. And I don't know that he knew then (or
any time before she went to Woldercan) that Margaret was Cassie. I assume
that any hop had the potential to warp time, and Margaret was afraid of what
might happen when the craft warped.

> With this reading, many of the objections to the book fall apart. Is it
> disjointed, with no connection from the madcap beginning to the dark
> horror ending? No, it's all horror, tied together by Cassie and
> Margaret. Does it end abruptly, giving no idea what will happen to
> Cassie? No, as Paul Harvey says: "Now we know... the rest of the story."

Sad, ain't it? But that's the way life really is--we don't get to do it
over.

(I wonder how few Listers ever heard of Paul Harvey.)

-Roy