barnett@ut-sally.UUCP (Lewis Barnett) (08/23/84)
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After all these weeks of discussion on matter transmission, I just
remembered a really interesting story with an odd twist on it.
The story (novel, I guess, though I read an abridgement in some
anthology when I was about 12) is "The Stars My Destination" by
Alfred Bester. It's called "jaunting," and is a mental rather
than a mechanical process. You have to know the spatial coord-
inates of your destination before you start, then you just sort
of wish yourself there, if I remember correctly. Not knowing
your destination results in personal disaster. Part of the story
takes place in a prison, where one of the prevalent means of
"escape" is the "blue jaunt," a one-way trip that is detectable
by the characteristic muffled thud it produces. The hero of the
story, one Gulliver Foyle, is somewhat unusual (even in this
scenario) in that he is the first man to discover how to jaunt
in space *and* time.
Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
-- barnett@ut-sally.ARPA, barnett@ut-sally.UUCP,
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!barnett