clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org

8 surfing through hyperspace
their hands, cheering your upward flight. The headlights of tiny cars are
wreathed in mist, making you feel as if you're rising up through a waterfall
of stars.
Suddenly the sounds and lights disappear. You look down and are
standing on something that looks like asphalt. You can't quite see the
other end of the chain. You are somewhere in the fourth dimension!
You imagine that, to Narcinko, the chain simply ends in space, disappearing
abruptly in midair. There is still tension on the chain, and as you
pull it you can tell that more of the chain is coming toward you.
A vast expanse of space opens before you. Ecstasy! Surely if you were
to cut the chain around your leg, you could fly even further. Physical laws
and rules did not seem to be limitations, only stepping-off points for
something greater, more profound.
Several feet away are some undulating pumpkins. Well, not pumpkins
exactly, but close enough. As you walk you see glass, metal, and concrete
structures—all in strange polyhedral shapes, like large, twinkling stars. A
few greenish, frilly objects float in the air (Fig. 6.2). Plants?
You are drunk with pleasure, but realize that even though you are in a
4-D world, your 3-D perception is capturing only a piece of its true form.
These must be the spatial cross sections of buildings, curbs, streetlights,
bushes, and such. Some of the beings resemble blobs of flesh. Some are
covered with fabric; some are totally naked. You reason that you must be
in a world parallel to your own, elevated upsilon in the fourth dimension.
What would a Flatlander see as he floated in your world? If he could
only perceive in two dimensions, he could only see a piece at a time.
Imagine his confusion as he only saw cross sections of objects: desks,
lights, couches, tables, plants. ... It might drive him mad.
But you are not mad. You breathe more easily now; your heart is beating
slower than a few seconds before. A cool, gentle breeze dries the perspiration
on your forehead. As you look in one direction, you see a
city-like structure with iridescent windows that make the fog radiate and
pulse with life of its own.
Suddenly, three blobs of flesh coalesce in front of you. Leather begins
to surround one of them. Leather? Mad visions of 4-D cows float
through your brain.
Then the blobs disappear. Perhaps they are citizens of hyperspace who
had not noticed you, or had seen you but had not cared. Would they be
used to penetration of 3-D worlds into their own?