jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) (12/29/89)
Just came across this passage in a 1966 story by Roger Zelazny:
I have become something of a bibliophile in recent years. It is
not so much that I hunger and thirst after knowledge, but that I am
news-starved.
It all goes back to my position in the big mixmaster. Admitted,
there are *some* things faster than light, like the phase
velocities of radio waves in ion plasma, or the tips of the
ion-modulated light-beams of Duckbill, the comm-setup back in Sol
System, whenever the hinges of the beak snap shut on Earth--but
these are highly restricted instances, with no application
whatsoever to the passage of shiploads of people and objects
between the stars. You can't exceed lightspeed when it comes to
the movement of matter. You can edge up pretty close, but that's
about it.
Life can be suspended though, that's easy--it can be switched
off and switched back on again with no trouble at all. This is why
*I* have lasted so long. If we can't speed up the ships, we *can*
slow down the people--slow them until they stop--and *let* the
vessel, moving at near-light-speed, take half a century, or more if
it needs it, to convey its passengers to where they are going.
This is why I am very alone. Each little death means resurrection
into both another land and another time. I have had several, and
*this* is why I have become a bibliophile: news traverls slowly, as
slowly as the ships and the people. Buy a newspaper before you hop
aboard ship and it will still be a newspaper when you reach your
destination--but back where you bought it, it would be considered
an historical document. Send a letter back to Earth and your
correspondent's grandson may be able to get an answer back to your
great-grandson, if the message makes real good connections and both
kids live long enough.
All the little libraries Out Here are full of rare books--first
editions of best sellers which people pick up before they leave
Someplace Else, and which they often donate after they've finished.
We assume that these books have entered the public domain by the
time they reach here, and we reproduce them and circulate our own
editions. No author has ever sued, and no reproducer has ever been
around to *be* sued by representatives, designates, or assigns.
We are completely autonomous and are always behind the times,
because there is a transit-lag which cannot be overcome. Earth
Central, therefore, exercises about as much control over us as a
boy jiggling a broken string while looking up at his kite.
Perhaps Yeats had something like this in mind when he wrote that
fine line, "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold." I doubt
it, but I still have to go to the library to read the news.
Roger Zelazny,
"The Moment of the Storm"
in *The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth / and other stories
including "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"*, Avon Books, New York, c1974.
Jacob
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Jacob Gore Jacob@Gore.Com boulder!gore!jacob