From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: (urth) Green and Blue
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 01:48:39 -0600

If the two mentions of the distance in leagues from Blue to Green, cited
earlier, along with the perceived interval between them, have any meaning
wrt to the cosmic dance being waltzed by the two bodies; that is, if Wolfe
wasn't just throwing out arbitrary numbers, then they have to bear on the
physical relationship between the two bodies. If I am correct in my
deduction that Green is never nearer Blue than 105,000 miles, nor farther
than (roughly) 540,000 miles, then the two are locked in a macabre dance
called to the tune of gravity. As I see it, there are three possibilities:
1)Blue and Green circle each other, in the same orbit around the sun. 2)One
body is a satellite of the other, in the same orbit around the sun. 3)The
two bodies are traveling together, linked by gravity, in the same (in
effect) orbit around the sun.

There's no getting around it: if Green is never much more than half a
million miles from Blue, then they are in the same solar orbit, regardless
of how it came about, just as Earth and Moon are. I don't know how to
account for the six-year cycle.

Blue, so far as we can tell from the text, is uncannily like Earth. It seems
to have the same gravity, solar year, length of day, seasons, atmosphere,
chemical composition, etc. (If that isn't true, then we've had the wool
pulled over our eyes, and few of our speculations matter. There's no point
in figuring times and distances when we're not using the same clocks and
yardsticks.) Even the flora and fauna aren't all that different. What is
true of Blue seems also to be true of Green, for the most part. The
differences are less of kind than of degree. The main difference between
Blue and Green evidenced in the text is that the latter is much hotter;
indeed, Green seems to have no seasons. If the above figures are right, then
the heat of Green is not due to it being closer to the sun than Blue. Green
must have no axial tilt, to account for the lack of seasons.

I recall no mention of Green causing an eclipse of the sun on Blue. Does
this preclude it orbiting Blue? Or, for that matter, from them orbiting each
other? Even near conjunction Green is said to "rise", and is apparently only
visible at night, though once risen it is then so bright as to be "almost a
second sun" ("Afterward", EXODUS).

I don't know where all this is leading, but I really wish someone would come
up with a better explanation of Gagliardo's measurements, which are, btw, on
page 228 of IGJ.

-Roy


--