(urth) Home Fires questions

[Stephen Hoy]

On Wednesday, October 19, 2011 4:16 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote in reply to me:
>> Hoy: What if a year is actually ten hundred-days? Is there anything in Home Fires that might contradict this metrification?  Twenty-two years of hundred-time equals about sixty of ours ...

> Stockoff: There was some discussion of time a few months ago (see "Home Fires and calendar reform"). The year seems to be 400 days, with 100-day quarters and (I guess) 33-day months. So 500 days would be more than a year. I just returned the book to the library---how long is Chelle supposed to be on leave? Anyway, the agent's assignment to Skip could be that long.

> Stockoff: Now, if you allow massive rounding (odd in a metric time system, but maybe common among people who haven't adapted to it yet), "200 days, about half a year" could mean almost 250 days, so a year might be 500 days. BTW, I think you're off by a decimal: 22 x 100 = 2200; 2200/365 = 6 of our years or 5.5 400-day years. Or did I misunderstand you?

I was calculating that 22 "thousand-day years" is about 60 "three-hundred-sixty-five-day years."     22 * 1000 = 60 * 366.666...  But my guess is refuted by a detail I hadn't noticed & to which you refer: Ch 11 Right and Left, Rick Johnson tells Skip about a temporary job he once held for "two hundred days or so, about half a year." 

> Stockoff: Another approach: if tours of duty are similar to our own, i.e., 6 months to 2 to 4 years, maybe that's a place to start. Given interstellar distances, 2 years may be the minimum time Chelle was away. Would 1000 days be a typical tour, or 500 + star travel? How many years would pass on Earth?

Nailing down the length of a year has significance if you want to know where Chelle fought the Os.

In Ch 2 When Janie Comes Marching Home, Chelle asks, "How long was I gone?" "Twenty-two years, one hundred and six days," Skip replies, "I was..." then trails off into silence. "Speechless, Counselor?" Skip offers up a few words to explain how he felt, including a phrase from Edward Coke,"Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi." Truth is only afraid of concealment.   Curiously, we find a similar quote in An Evil Guest from Coke's legal rival Francis Bacon, the bit in the first chapter where the President scoffs,"What's truth,  said jestin' Pilate."] This particular legal phrase doesn't really fit Skip's situation. To me, it feels more like "X" marks the spot.


The time passed provides an estimate of the distance traveled. There are only three stars within 11 light years of Earth. Assuming near-perfect lightspeed travel, Chelle possibly traveled to Epsilon Eridani, 10.5 light years distant. 

Doesn't leave Chelle much duty time at her destination--about 1 year 106 days--, but this is consistent with the story. She returned early due to injury.
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