clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
clifford_a-_pickover_surfing_through_hyperspacebookfi-org
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156 <strong>surfing</strong> <strong>through</strong> hyperspace<br />
sometimes single or naught or three.<br />
Let then your imagination wander<br />
to the land where I grew this flower<br />
and your heart yearn for new places,<br />
and you will see me and love me in my many faces,<br />
and know wonders your kind calls magical power,<br />
and know riddles that even your Sphinx could not ponder.<br />
Although touched by the being's show of emotion, Sally declined his<br />
romantic advances and eventually married Narcinko. A year later, you<br />
discovered that the man in the Santa Glaus outfit was working for the<br />
Omegamorphs, helping people lift off into the fourth dimension and<br />
providing neural implants so explorers could see more clearly while taking<br />
transuniversal journeys.<br />
A day ago you received your implants and decided to make a trip.<br />
Tanya, a woman who had already made several journeys into the fourth<br />
dimension, is by your side, functioning as a tour guide. After several<br />
months of intensive training with Tanya, studying ordinary shapes in<br />
your own world, you feel you are ready for the ultimate trip.<br />
Occasionally Tanya disappears, wreathed in fog. It often seems that<br />
you are going in different directions. As you fly, you recall Sally's admonition<br />
not to worry about the phantom Santa Glaus. At the time, it seemed<br />
there was no real need to find him. But perhaps Sally had, all along, been<br />
trying to tell you not to feel guilty about your dreams of flight. She knew<br />
it was important always to reach out, break the barriers, leave personal<br />
demons behind—to escape from your cages.<br />
Tanya seems to lose altitude for a second, but it is probably only your<br />
imagination. For a dizzying minute you feel as if you are about to fall.<br />
Oh no! Down you plunge. A windy sound fills your ears. Below, you<br />
think you see the Washington Monument, ominous, powerful, looming<br />
up like a bleached bone. But no. It is only your difficulty of adjusting to<br />
the new way of perceiving.<br />
Space rushes by. Maybe stars and galaxies. And then there is the flashing<br />
of small creatures, many with tiny, symmetrical tiles on their surfaces<br />
(Fig. 6.4).<br />
The sounds grow quieter, except . . . every now and then you think<br />
you hear a faint sigh, barely audible. At first you think it is Tanya, but<br />
you hear the sound repeatedly and finally realize it is coming from some-