Why did the Vuduri miss the Winfall disappearance?

One of the casualties of compressing three books into one is that some of the more subtle nuances of science were omitted. In the earlier version of Rome’s Revolution, Part 1 (originally titled VIRUS 5: Asdrale Cimatir [Stareater]), Rei and OMCOM have a discussion about this topic. How was it that the Vuduri with all their scientific prowess, could miss the disappearance of Winfall? After all, that was the entire purpose of setting up the stellar observatory.

The answer is because they traveled faster than light. Every time they jump through a PPT tunnel, their time, relative to the universe around them, goes backwards by a small degree. Enough jumps and you have a sizeable delay. Since it took them over a month to get out to Tabit, their clocks were off by over six weeks or so. So, after waiting well past the due date, the Vuduri gave up and packed up the shop. Sadly, they started shutting down just days before the actual wavefront came along.

While Rome’s Revolution still has Rei inventing the starprobes, the original story also had OMCOM and Rei perform an experiment proving that clocks go backwards through PPT tunnels.