(urth) Ansible Interview

[Matthew Groves]

I'm having trouble seeing how the excerpts quoted indicate that the
shade is a spiral, and trouble envisioning how a spiral shade would
ever provide night anywhere in the Whorl, since there would always be
sunlight coming from the east or west.

The last excerpt, for example ("...the first thin thread of the long
sun cutting the skylands in two") seems to me to indicate that the
shade moves from north to south over the width of the long sun, not
east to west along its length.  Same with "the sun has already begun
to narrow."  And when Silk is looking at the skylands and seeing
valleys, it's late at night, and they're "as clear and bright as
Silk...had ever seen them."  So it's full light, i.e. noon, in the
skylands.  The light is coming straight down on the skylands, not
obliquely from the east or west.  Yet Silk sees valleys filled with
shadow.

Can you point to anywhere in the text that refers to sunlight coming
from the east or west but not from overhead?