From: Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net
I would really hate to use those visits to Exbar as evidence of Blake's heterosexuality--Inga appears to be at least a decade younger. If Blake made three annual visits, when he was fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, then....euuwww. Squick. (Unless that's where the Federation got the idea for the accusations.)
Actually, there's an easy way out of it. Ushton may have been sent to Exbar 'years' before, but that doesn't mean Inga went with him at the time. She could have remained on Earth, where big cousin Roj was there to look after her. If she was in her late teens, he in his mid-to-late twenties, it's not nearly as squicky.
In fact, it doesn't follow that Inga is a convict at all. Blake went to Exbar several times, since prisoners there were allowed visitors. Maybe, once Blake was convicted (first or second time around) Inga elected to join her father on Exbar as an indefinite-stay visitor. We only now for a fact that she's definitely been there since the previous winter, when she pulled Ushton out of crevasse. Though she might have gone away since then and come back again. For all we are told by the script, Travis might have picked her up somewhere else entirely and taken her to Exbar himself, though her outfit suggests she's been there a while and gone native.
And what was Uncle Ushton sent to Exbar for in the first place?
Neil