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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@sirius.com> Subject: (whorl) BLUE spoilers Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 14:24:18 Wombat had the subjective time for the flight of the Whorl but wanted to know what the objective time was. Subjective time: 332 years, exactly. Objective time: 1000 years, roughly (III, 242). This ratio (332:1000) makes it look like a velocity of around 95% c. And the target star would seem to be over 900 light years from Urth. Jim Jordan (howdie, stranger!) wondered where Horn might have been infused with Silkiness in OBW. Seems to me the most likely spot would be that =pit= where he =died=! Remember how we all went over the weird details of Silk dying in that pit and/or cave-in, then being "found" (revived? resurrected?) by an inhumi (Q)? The same thing happens here, with many of the same odd details, but all sorts of new complications. And iirc it is after the pit-death thing that Horn kills the animal that the others are so impressed by (that is, he might be enhanced at that point). (Of course, how a hypothetical, blood-borne Silk virus could have gotten from Q to our new vampire friend is a very puzzling exercise.) Jim Jordan was wondering about the "timer" going off, to signal landing. Right, that would appear to be the end of Pas's Planned Time (II, 235) which was about 100 years before the events in TBOTLS. If true, then the Whorl had been orbiting the Short Sun for 100 years. And then it seems like Pas was killed because the other gods didn't want to break up their cozy little whorl. (To return to the Wombat section above:) If the Whorl arrived in the target system on time, 100 years ago, then . . . Subjective flight time: 232 years Objective flight time: 900 years Which is a tad faster than the other model, but still under 99% c. =mantis= *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. *More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/ *To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request@lists.best.com *If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth@lists.best.com