Subject: (urth) Station Sign

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 10:15:32 +0000

I didn't mention this before, but yes, it =has= always reminded me of the
special individualized symbols at every jaunt platform in Bester's THE
STARS OUR DESTINATION--this is a case where everybody (well, nearly
everybody) can teleport via psionic power, but to keep things orderly they
usually "jaunt" from platform to platform, and to aid the process and avoid
misjump, each platform has its own glyph-sign-thingie, to serve as a
mneumonic.

Which is interesting because the presence chamber =is= something of a jaunt
platform!

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 15:52:48 +0000

mantis wrote:

>>Re: that symbol in the presence chamber that makes Jonas say he's on
Urth.<<

    Actually, it's less than obvious from the text that the teratoid sign is
what prompted Jonas to say that. He had been walking with Sev like, well,
the automaton that he is. The crimson sign was on the outside of the door to
the chamber, not in the chamber itself. Jonas may not even have noticed the
sign. When Sev hears a tread upon the stair he forces the door open. Once
inside, the door closes and the light brightens. After looking around the
chamber he examines Jonas's face, which is "still fixed", but looks like the
face "almost, of a man about to wake...". Then, after ignoring what Sev has
been saying to him, is when Jonas says: "I know where we are," ... "and
raised one arm stiffly to point toward something I had taken to be a folding
screen." Sev asks where, and Jonas answers "On Urth", then walks across the
room to the panels.

    To me, it seems that it is the sight of the panels which stirs Jonas out
of his funk, causes him to cry, and make his pronouncement. Clearly, Jonas
has had experience of such panels and knows how to operate them. His tears
are shed because, at last, he has found the means to get back to wherever he
came from.

    He had been confused since he got zapped, obviously, because he'd known
for years that he was on Urth. He had earlier had a "flashback", so to
speak, to a time when there had been a blackout aboard a spacecraft he had
been on. He may be in the throes of another such flashback when he sees the
panels, causing him to forget that he was already on Urth, but recalling
another time he had been on Urth in the presence of such mirrors.This raises
the issue: where had Jonas had prior knowledge of these kinds of mirrors?
After all, they are not, evidently, a common means of transportation around
the universe.

Roy