Marmiadon tells Matuchek:
"'If [Valeria] were in the Low Continuum, retrieval operations would involve temporal phasing. Do you know what I mean? I'm not learned in such matters myself, but our adepts are, and a portion of their findings is taught to initiates, beginning at the fourth degree. The mathematics is beyond me. But as I recall, the hell universe has a peculiar, complex space-time geometry. It would be as easy to recover your daughter from the exact instant when she arrived there as from any other moment.'" (p. 202)
I do not think that either the peculiarity or the complexity of the space-time geometry of the hell universe is necessary to reach Marmiadon's conclusion that Valeria can be rescued from the moment of her arrival in the hell universe.
The (a) goetic universe and (b) hell universe are two spatiotemporal universes, each with at least three spatial dimensions and at least one temporal dimension. If there were a one-to-one relationship between any given moment in (a) and a corresponding moment in (b), then (a) and (b) would be not different universes but different spatial regions within a single temporal universe - and, even then, the relativity of simultaneity would prevent an exact one-to-one correspondence.
(a) and (b) can be compared to two entirely different books. I am currently rereading Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson and Blood Royal by Dornford Yates. Neither book is a chapter, part or sub-section of the other. They are not two volumes of a single series. Each has its own fictional timeline. No moment in Chandos' experience is simultaneous with any moment in Matuchek's experience. If I cease to reread Operation Chaos at the bottom of p. 202, then I am not obliged to begin rereading Blood Royal from the top of p. 203. I can begin at the beginning or at any other point in the text. It would be a mere coincidence if my rereading of p. 202 in one book were to be immediately followed by my rereading of p. 203 in the other book.
Leaving (a) the goetic universe, the expedition to rescue Valeria will enter (b) the hell universe entirely from outside that entire spatiotemporal universe, like opening a book, not necessarily at p. 1. We can open a book either at random or at the page where we have placed a bookmark. Scanning (b) from entirely outside that universe, the expedition can identify not only a place, a set of spatial coordinates, but also a time, the moment of Valeria's arrival, and can then enter (b) at that place and time - or, better still, slightly earlier to rescue her at the instant when she arrives.
If, further, the expedition can return to (a) at any moment of its existence, then they have found a means of time travel within (a). However, I imagine that there are some physical limitations, e.g., that the spell that enables them to leave their universe returns them to the set of spatiotemporal coordinates from which they had departed. (A span of time in (b) would correspond to zero time in (a).)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
It might perhaps be a bit clearer to say the effort needed to rescue Valeria resulted in the goetic scientists of the OPERATION CHAOS universe learning how to travel to or between alternate worlds. Practical, scientifically worked out methods, and not the inadequate, inefficient cook book "formula" discovered by Holger Carlsen in THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, which we see him using in A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST.
In the real world, of course, I'm skeptical that "goetic" methods can be used for traveling to parallel worlds!
Ad astra! Sean
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