(urth) Cassie as the Ambassador's wife

[Dave Tallman]

Now that I think about it, it's not so impossible that Cassie could get 
her ship-board computer to figure out how to travel to the Woldercan of 
the past, so as to become the Mrs. Reis of that time. Through the 
miracles of time-travel she could even be the mother of Rian. If so, the 
choice of the name "Rian" is time-looped (his mother named him, p. 277). 
It's also predictive, since it means "little prince" at a time when Bill 
was not yet a king. Cassie mourned for her children (p. 295) that she 
could have had with Bill. This way, she will have one.

It then makes perfect sense that Cassie cannot meet Rian in person. He 
would recognize her. Rian is a "little too brave" (p. 26), and so is 
Cassie, sometimes. It would also make sense for him to have a birth 
defect only magic could cure, given the magic that has enhanced and 
un-enhanced Cassie's system.

Could she be beautiful enough again to win Bill? I think so. She knows 
that beauticians can do a lot for her (p. 292). Not enough to be a 
mega-star, but enough to woo Bill. She can tell him some sort of story, 
not the truth. She's a good liar. So there need not be time paradoxes.

She knows it will end in divorce, but she will have a son, a piece of a 
man she loved and lost (p. 26). This would be a fairly happy ending, and 
it doesn't exclude her going back again, later in life, to be Margaret 
Briggs as well.

The Norns, or Fates, were supposed to be a maiden, a mother, and a 
crone. Cassie could play all three roles in this story. In "Figures of 
Earth," James Branch Cabell calls them the Gray Three or the Gray 
Weavers. This ties in with Margaret as a Gray Neighbor (p. 64).