“But Louis Wu went alone, jumping before the midnight line, looking for a new day” … Larry Naven’s Ringworld
Tithi Luadthong / Alamy
In the heart of the night, in a row of general address transfer wired, Louis Wu became a reality.
The length of the foot queues was white and bright as artificial snow. His skin and scalp image were a yellow chromium; The iris of his eyes were gold; Her clothing was Royal blue with a steroptic golden dragon. When it divided it was very smiling, he showed pearl, perfect and perfectly standards. Smiling and wave. But the smile was already disappearing, and he disappeared at a moment, and the mouse of the face melted the rubber mask. Louis Wu showed his age.
At times, Beirut Stream saw him after: People played to the cabins of unknown places; People walked past, now the sliders were turned off the night. Then the clocks began to play twenty-three. Louis Wu went straight down the shoulders and went into the world.
At Resht, where he was doing his full blasting party, it was the morning after the birthday. Here was an hour earlier in Beirut. He was encouraged in a Luis outdoor restaurant in rich shifts and singing songs in Arabic and Lnterworld. He left Budapest before midnight.
Were they still realized that he left his party? They would assume that a woman went with him, he would return in a couple of hours. But Louis Wu went alone, jumping before the midnight line, looking for a new day. Twenty-four hours was not long enough for male two hundred birthdays.
They could get along with him. Louis’s friends could take care of it. In this regard, Louis’s standards were inflexible.
They were Budapest’s wine and athletics dances, the locals who tolerated as tourists, who believed that they were local rich. He danced the dances and drank wines, and left before midnight.
He walked in Munich.
The air was warm and clean; Cleaned some mental smoke. He made a living population, adding his rhythm to ten-kilometer hours. It happened that all the cities in the world had sliidewalks, and they all moved to ten kilometers per hour.
Thought was unbearable. It’s not new; just unbearable. Louis Wu watched Beirut similar to Munich and Resht
… And San Francisco and Topeka and London and Amsterdam. Sliidewalks shops sold the same products in all cities in the world. They passed these citizens tonight, they all dressed. Not American or Germany or Egyptians, but empty plains.
In the centuries, transfer cabins made the infinite variety of the earth. The world was covered in an instant travel network. The difference between Moskva and Sydney were a time and tenth star coin. Inevitably, cities were mixed over the centuries until the names of the place were only the relics of the past.
They were the north and southern ends of a wide city on San Francisco and San Diego coast. But how many people knew what end was it? A few tanj these days.
Pessimistic thought, for both of the man’s two hundredth birthday.
But the mixture of cities was real. Louis saw him. All the irrationality of the place and time and custom, mixing in a great rationality of the city, worldwide, as sad gray. Does anyone talk to Deutsch, English, Francais, Espior? Everyone talked lnterworld. The style of the body changed the style at once, worldwide, in a rise monster. Time for another sabbatical? Unknown, solo singly, his skin and eyes and hair and their hair, a beard is growing randomly on the face …
“Walnuts,” Louis said to himself. “I just came back from a sabbath.” Twenty years ago.
But it leads to midnight. Louis Wu has found a transfer cabin, entering his credit card slot and marked it for Seville.
Sunlit was created in a room.
This extraction reproduces with permission Ringworld Larry Niven, published by Gollancz. This novel is the last chance of the new scientist book club. Sign up and read with us many.
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