(urth) Gideon

[Dave Tallman]

Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> 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.
>   
It's true that the other riders "turned to speak with Corby" (155), so 
Margaret could have kept from eye contact without holding her eyes shut. 
It did give her an excuse not to look at him. She knew she was about to 
be arrested and that Gib was working for the FBI. She didn't want to 
risk giving him information that would make her interrogation more 
difficult.

The time-warping fear seems implausible, since there seems to be a 
connection between warping distance and the amount of time skipped. 
Messages to and from Woldercan seem to time-shift only a few days or 
weeks. To go back further, one must traverse an even greater distance. I 
think this is the explanation for why the Milky Way looks like a "little 
band of bright stars" (301) at the end. Cassie has left Woldercan and 
gotten into position to make her run back into time.

Possibly Cassie and Margaret being in close proximity makes it more 
dangerous. I'm starting a new theory on the reality-shifts. They seem to 
happen only in places where the two are together. Perhaps the proximity 
of the two creates a paradox field. As Cassie says, "it's liable to get 
complicated" (298) when you mess with time paradoxes.

For example, look at what happened to Jimmy. He was sandwiched between 
Cassie in the tiny dressing room (backing away from her) and Margaret 
coming in (nearly bumping into her), on p. 56. Then  "...Cassie 
suspected he would have run, had he still been capable of running" (57). 
Jimmy was in his sixties or seventies (52). Would age alone make him 
unable to run? Would he still be employed as a theater watchman if he 
couldn't?

A short time later, Jimmy was dead, apparently of natural causes. 
Cassie's assumption at the time was that Reis killed Jimmy somehow, but 
later we realize that isn't his style. Cassie half-heartedly asks 
Margaret to look into it for her (90), but nothing ever comes of this. 
They seem to mutually agree to let it drop. There is one more possible 
sign of an uneasy conscience on Cassie's part: when she buys a hopper 
she chooses a Jimmy Galactic (297).

More cases:
1) Cassie's apartment number, address, and floor seem to move. Cassie 
and Margaret are together there more than once.
2) When Cassie and Margaret are together at Rustermans, Margaret is 
identified as "Alexis's dresser" and Margaret says softly "I'm Miss 
Casey's dresser now, Miss White" (60). Soon Alexis has been converted 
into a waitress at Rusterman's.
3) When Cassie needs a safe in her hotel room, Margaret helps her 
find/create it.

This is a little better than my other theory where Cassie does all these 
changes alone, by pure angelic power.