(urth) Cassie as the Ambassador's wife

[Roy C. Lackey]

Dave Tallman wrote:
> Rian's age of sixteen may be part of the time-travel paradoxes of
> going to Woldercan and back. If Reis came back before he left -- I
> think he did, creating greater a greater confusion for his foes about
> the Reis/Rosenquist identities, then Cassie and Rian could have also.
> They dealt with Chase first, leading Reis to consult him. Chase plays
> a devious game throughout. He may have recognized Cassie and chosen to
> say nothing.

So Rian was born on Woldercan? This makes my head hurt.

Cassie was in her early-to-mid-thirties at the end of the book, despite
looking like an old woman. She goes to Woldercan and arrives some years
before Reis ever got there as Klauser's replacement? Then what? She looked
like crap, and Gideon and Reis were still back on Earth. Gid wasn't there to
fix her looks (if it was even possible), and Reis wasn't there to father
Rian on her.

For Cassie to be Rian's mother (and Reis his father), she had to hook up
with Reis at some point. She had her mojo for only a matter of months, and
was too long stranded on that island for her to have been pregnant when she
was rescued. So when did she conceive Rian? It didn't happen before the
first day of the story or during the story; it had to be in her personal
future.

Wait. Suppose she became the proverbial "other woman". She went to Woldercan
to see Gideon but arrived too soon, while Reis was still ambassador. She
gets her health and looks back enough to attract Reis (there cannot have
been many human women on Woldercan), has a fling that breaks up his
marriage, and gets pregnant. Maybe even married him. They have a falling
out. She and Rian go back to Earth alone and arrive before page one.

That is wild speculation, and I don't like it. <g>

Cassie told Klauser that she hoped to be on Woldercan a long time. It
*seems* as if she planned to go there to see Ambassador Gideon Chase, and
she didn't talk to Klauser as if she *planned* to try to go back in time.
The vagaries of ethermail suggest that time travel would be unpredictable,
at best, if it is even possible. If it is possible, it seems like it would
be common knowledge, or that the government at least would know of it and
warn its off-world diplomats.

> > After selling the diamonds, Cassie was the richest woman in the state.
> > Rian's mother was rich and still alive. Pavlatos was filthy rich,
whether or
> > not she was also Rian's mother. Then there is poor Margaret. How did she
> > come to be the only version not rich? Depending on Pavlatos's status,
that
> > makes three or four versions of the same woman running around on Earth
at
> > the same time. That makes any attempts to go back in time for a do-over
> > problematic.
>
> Margaret may not be as poor as she appeared to be. She apparently
> never took valuables from her clients (Reis had this investigated).
> She needed to appear poor in order to play her role as a dresser and
> get close to Cassie. That's all that matters.

I still have doubts that she could have faked a past that would have stood
up to serious inquiry. Anyway, she is supposed to be about sixty. That makes
her older than Cassie and Rian's mother (hard to say about Pavlatos). If
Margaret was ever the young Cassie who had loved and lost Wally/Bill, and
who had gone to Woldercan and gone back in time to try to fix things, she
was somewhere for at least two-dozen years that is in Cassie's future. That
looks to me to be a bleak future, and her efforts failed. That is, one
version of Cassie's life did not get overwritten by another one--at least
not that I can see. Broken Cassie passed old Margaret in the street. That
Margaret was still there is the proof of failure.

-Roy