To Build a World

To Build a World

By Poul Anderson

Fifty floors down, the elevator let him out into a lobby, small and empty despite its polished marble. “Blastula,“ he muttered, « I'd hoped this was a hotel.” But no. You couldn't get away with as much in a hotel as you could in a soundproofed apartment. Baccioco probably maintained a number of those, around the planet. Sevigny debated whether to borrow someone's phone here. If he left this exit unwatched, his enemies could get away before the police arrived.

On the other hand, if he hung around they might well find some way to recapture him. And as for their escape, come to think of it, men as prominent as Baccioco and – he supposed – Gupta couldn't disappear. Rashid didn't matter, was little more than a tool. And he found himself hoping a bit that Maura would go free.

Oscar made comforting noises on his shoulder.

He walked out onto the street. It was wide and softly lit, lined with tall residential buildings. An occasional car went by, the whisper of its air cushion blending with the warm breeze that rustled in palm fronds. He was high above the ocean, which he glimpsed at the edge of the city glitter beneath. The Moon was no longer in sight, but he made our a few stars.

Where was the nearest public phone? He chose an eastward course arbitrarily and began striding. His buskins thudded; the slight jar and the sense of kinesthesia helped shake a little tightness out of him. But his skin was still wet, his stink sharp against a background of jasmine, his nerves still taut.

At the end of the block a pedestrian belt lifted him over the street. From the top of its arc he spied some glowsigns to the north, and headed that way. Before long he reached a cluster of shops. They were closed for the night, but even in his hurry he lost a few seconds gaping at their display windows. Was that much luxury possible on an Earth that everyone called impoverished? Wait. Remember your history classes. Inordinate wealth for a few has always gone along with inordinate want for the many. Because the many no longer have the economic strength to resist -

That recalled him to his purpose. There was a booth at the corner. He went in, fumbled for a half dollar and dropped the coin in the slot. The screen lit. He needed a minute to figure out how the system worked. On Venus and Luna they used radio for distance calls, intercoms when indoors. Finally he punched the button marked Directory and spelled out POLICE on the alphabet keys. A set of station numbers appeared. He dialed.

A face and a pair of uniformed shoulder came to view. “Honolulu Central. Can I help you?”

“I want to, report a theft and a kidnapping,” Sevigny said. It felt odd not to be telling his troubles to a clan elder.

The voice and eyes sharpened. “Where are you?”

Sevigny peered out at the signs and read the off. “I don't know where the nearest station would be. I'm stranger here.”

We are strangers here. Photo by Elena.

The Critique of Impure Reason

The Critique of Impure Reason

By Poul Anderson

The robot entered so quietly, for all his bulk, that Felix Tunny didn't hear. Bent over his desk, the man was first aware of the intruder when a shadow came between him and the fluoreceil. Then a last footfall quivered the floor, a vibration that went through Tunny's chair and into his bones. He whirled, choking on a breath, and saw the blueblack shape like a cliff above him. Eight feet up, the robot's eyes glowed angry crimson in a faceless helmet of a head.

A voice like a great gong reverberated through the office: “My, but you look silly.”

“What the devil are you doing?” Tunny yelped.

“Wandering about,” said Robot IZK-99 airily. “Hither and yon, yon and hither. Observing life. How deliciously right Brochet is!”

“Huh?” said Tunny. The fog of data, estimates, and increasingly frantic calculations was only slowly clearing from his head.

IZK-99 extended an enormous hand to exhibit a book.

Tunny read “The Straw and the Bean: a Novel of Modern Youth by Truman Brochet on the front. The back of the dust jacket was occupied by a coloripic of the author, who had bangs and delicate lips. Deftly, the robot flipped the book open and read aloud:

“Worms”, she said. “That's what they are, worms, that's what we-uns all are, Billy Chile, worms that grew a spine an' a brain way back in the Obscene or the Messyzoic or whenever it was.” Even in her sadness Ella Mae must always make her sad little jokes, which saddened me still more on this day of said rain and dying, magnolia blossoms. “We don't want them”, she said. “Backbones and brains, I mean, honey. They make us stiff and topheavy, so we can't lie down no more and be just nothing ay-tall but worms.”

“Take off your clothes,” I yawned.

“What has that got to do with anything?” Tunny asked.

“If you do not understand,” said IZK-99 coldly, “there is no use in discussing it with you. I recommend that you read Arnold Roach's penetrating critical essay on this book. It appeared in the last issue of  “Pierce, Arrow!” The Magazine of Penetrating Criticism. He devotes four pages to analyzing the various levels of meaning in that exchange between Ella Mae and Billy Chile.”  

“Ooh,” Tunny moaned. “Isn't it enough I've got a hangover, a job collapsing under me because of you, and a fight with my girl, but you have to mention that rag?”

“How vulgar you are. It comes from watching stereovision.” The robot sat down in a chair, which creaked alarmingly under his weight, crossed his legs and leafed through his book. The other hand lifted a rose to his chemosensor. “Exquisite,” he murmured.

“You don't imagine I”d sink to reading what the call fiction these days, do you?” Tunny sneered, with a feeble hope of humiliating him into going to work. “Piddling little experiments in the technique of describing more and more complicated ways to feel sorry for yourself – what kind of entertainment is that for a man?”

The race needs love, to be sure. Illustration by Elena.

Pusha

Pusha, various images from the past and the present

Push - selfie.

Timeless Existence

Timeless Existence

As we learn to open our hearts, we have the opportunity to reside in love, compassion , joy and equanimity – what the Dzogchen masters call “spontaneous equalness.” Heart-opening leads to the experience of freedom and the “truth of the heart.” Dzogchen is profoundly in favor of heart-opening and experiencing this transcendent flow of loving awareness, but it also recognizes that one has a head, a brain, a mind, and, above all, limitless awareness. It is this awareness (which is who you are) that will not be peaceful and satisfied until it has achieved its potential, satisfied its inner need and drive, and expanded into the spaciousness of timeless existence.

Other forms of Buddhism are-heart-centered and emphasize, first, the teachings of the “Four Noble Truths” and the “Eightfold Way” to escape suffering and achieve liberation or freedom, as taught by Buddha in the Deer Park. And, secondarily, the Bohisattva path comprises emptiness and compassion for the removal of suffering for all sentient beings. Dzogchen offers a third path where we have the opportunity to experience the truth of the heart in addition to the ultimate freedom, the truth of the universe. I am finally learning to travel that blessed path each night at bedtime, and each morning as I awaken, in gratitude.

I am convinced that timeless awareness and spaciousness is our goal. If that is too big a step, however, there is always gratitude, which is everyone's salvation. If we can awaken in the morning and, instead of feeling fear or resentment, give thanks to God – or the organizing principle of the universe that gives us our good health and our good minds – we are well on the way to peace and freedom. We are actually giving thanks for grace – the unsolicited gifts we have all been given. I have found that while I am in a state of gratitude, it is impossible for me to be unhappy.

While we cannot always control the events around us, we do have power over how we experience those events. At any moment, we can individually and collectively affect the course of our lives by choosing to direct our attention to the aspect of ourselves that is aware and, through the practice of self-inquiry, tl awareness itself. We can as, “Who is aware?” and then, “Who wants to know?” The choice of where we put our attention is ultimately our most powerful freedom. Our choice of attitude and focus affects not only our own perceptions and experiences, but also the experiences and behaviors of others.

(Excerpt from Limitless Mind, a Guide to remote viewing and transformation of consciousness, by Russell Targ, author of Miracles of Mind. New World Library, California, 2004).

Timeless awareness is our goal. Illustration by Elena.

Brake

Brake

Poul Anderson, excerpt

Many hours later, using orbital figures modified by further observation, a shuttle-boat from Ganymed came near enough to locate the Thunderbolt on radar. After maneuvering around so much, it didn't have reaction mass enough to match velocities. For about a second it passed so close that Devon's crew, working out on the hull, could see it – as if they were the damned in hell watching one of the elect fly past.

The shuttle-boat radioed for a vessel with fuller tanks. One came. It zeroed in – and decelerated like a startled mustang. The Thunderbolt had already fallen deeper into the enormous Jovian gravity field than the boat's engines could rise. 

The drifting ship vanished from sight, into the great face of the planet. High clouds veiled it from telescopes – clouds of free radicals, such as could not have existed for a moment under humanly endurable conditions. Jupiter is more alien than men can really imagine.

Her orbit on reemergence was not so very much different. But the boats which had almost reached her had been forced to move elsewhere they could not simply hang there, in that intense a field. So the Thunderbolt made another long, lonesome pass. By the time it was over, Ganymede was in the unfavorable position, and Callisto had never been in a good one. Therefore the ship entered Jupiter's atmosphere bor a third time, unattended.

On the next emergence into vacuum, her orbit had shortened and skewed considerably. The rate at which air drag operated was increasing, each plunge went deeper beneath the poison clouds, each swung through dear space took less time. However, there was hope. The Ganymedeans were finally organizing themselves. They computed an excellent estimate of what the fourth free orbit would be and planted well-fueled  boats strategically close at the right times.

Only – the Thunderbolt did not come anywhere near the predicted path.

It was pure bad luck. Devon's crew, working whenever the ship was in a vacuum, had almost cut away the after section. This last plunge into stiffening air resistance finished the job. Forces of drag and reaction, a shape suddenly altered, whipped the Thunderbolt wildly through the stratosphere. She broke free at last, on a drastically different orbit.

But then, it had been unusual good luck which brought the Jovians so close to her in the first place. Probabilities were merely reasserting themselves.

The radio said in a weak, fading voice: :Missed y” gain. Do know if we d'n come near, next time. Your period's getting' very short.”

“Maybe you shouldn't risk it.” Banning sighed. He had hoped for more, but if the gods had decided his ship was to plunge irretrievably into Jupiter, he had to accept the fact.

“We'll be all right, I reckon.” 

Outside, the air roared hollowly. Pressures incomparably greater than those in Earth's deepest oceans waited below.

On his final pass into any approximation of clear space – the stars were already hazed – Banning radioed: “This will be the last message, except for a ten-minute signal on the same band when we come to rest. Assuming we're alive! We've got to save capacitors. It'll be some time before help arrives. When it does, call me. I'll respond if we've survived, and thereafter emit a steady tone by which we can be located. Is that clear?”

A space-boat lost in space. Illustration by Elena.