Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa (09/28/84)
I'm sure this mailing list gets a lot of this, but I'd really appreciate a pointer to a short story with the following rough plot: A young alien boy lives on Earth, and he is unaware of his origins. Apparently he has a sense of ``winding number'', in that if he were to walk around the block, he would feel a desire to turn once in the opposite direction, to regain his equilibrium. Naturally, he attempts to suppress this strange behavior, and as he gets older he is able to tolerate larger winding numbers---at the end of the day he stands on his bed turning and doing backflips. The purpose of the sense is to orient him with respect to his home, which is a distant star. This summary may be considerably distorted, since it is second- or third-hand. Thanks much, Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa
sharp%farmer.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (10/01/84)
From: sharp%farmer.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (Don Sharp, MKO1-1/B7 DTN 264-6068) From: Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa >A young alien boy lives on Earth, and he is unaware of his origins. >Apparently he has a sense of ``winding number'', in that if he were >to walk around the block, he would feel a desire to turn once in the >opposite direction, to regain his equilibrium. Naturally, he >attempts to suppress this strange behavior, and as he gets older he >is able to tolerate larger winding numbers---at the end of the day >he stands on his bed turning and doing backflips. The purpose of >the sense is to orient him with respect to his home, which is a >distant star. I recognize this enough to supply some more detail, but I can't place it. The story's protagonist was not an alien, but a human with the distinction of being the first human born in freefall, in orbit. He might also have spent some pre-natal time in freefall. He grew up with this infallible inertial sense of direction, and nobody could figure out how come. Then later in his life he suddenly experienced a debilitating case of chronic vertigo. His directional sense suddenly deserted him. Since they didn't know where it came from in the first place doctors had no explanation where it went. But by diligent research he found his own answer: a radio signal from space had suddenly turned off. It was a galactic carrier signal, that our hero had sensed with some hitherto dormant organ, and the vertigo he experienced heralded a message from the Benevolent Space Brothers. -Don.
wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer) (10/02/84)
> I'm sure this mailing list gets a lot of this, but I'd really appreciate > a pointer to a short story with the following rough plot: > A young alien boy lives on Earth, and he is unaware of his origins. > Apparently he has a sense of ``winding number'', in that if he were to walk > around the block, he would feel a desire to turn once in the opposite > direction, to regain his equilibrium. Naturally, he attempts to suppress > this strange behavior, and as he gets older he is able to tolerate larger > winding numbers---at the end of the day he stands on his bed turning and > doing backflips. The purpose of the sense is to orient him with respect to > his home, which is a distant star. > This summary may be considerably distorted, since it is second- or third-hand. > Thanks much, > Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa It's not a short story, it's a novel. The title is \\The Revolving Boy//. I believe the author is female, but I don't recall the name. It's been a while since I read it. The boy is not an alien. What he is is the first human born in space, the result of some unauthorized screwing around during a space mission crewed by a married couple. Bill Laubenheimer ----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science ...Killjoy went that-a-way---> ucbvax!wildbill
mcdonald@smu.UUCP (10/16/84)
I read this too, many years ago, and I must admit that the main thing
I remember is that the boy's best friend was a girl with perfect pitch.
He therefore thought of his hypersensitivity to orientation as
"perfect direction".
McD