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be a better word) then the choice of position becomes infinite.
There are, of course, practical difficulties limiting the use of this, which
arise when the problem of exactly calculating the desired position arises. But
that has been explained in a different place.* Once more, in the future and
again in a different place, the problem of no-time will be entered into once
again when the philosophical
*DORSAI! Commander-in-chief II
aspectsof it become relevant But for now, to return once more to the
historical moment of the exploding blasting-jelly cube, the important thing is
that for vulgar practical purposes, no-time can be taken merely to mean
sufficient, uncounted time.
No one literally,no one  is immune to error. It had been an error for Paul to
linger behindJase andKantele in their departure and be caught by the first
edge of the explosion. Having been caught, there was only one way out He went
instinctively into no-time to escape being destroyed, as lesser individuals
have done before him. Nearly everyone has heard of the authenticated instance
of the man who walked around the horses of his coach into nonexistence, and
there are many others.
In no-time he remained conscious, and was triggered into a sudden awareness
that since the original boating accident, at no time had he ever been without
some element of awareness. Even his sleep had been given over either to
periods ofasymbolic thought on the subconscious level or to dreams. And his
dreams, in fact, seemed a fine mill in the complex of his mental machinery. A
mill which took the results of the crude data that had been mined from the
solid substances of his daytime surroundings by the tools of his senses, then
rough-crushed by the intellectual upper processes of his intelligence, and now
were ground to fine powders and begun on the obscurer process that would
separate out the pure valuable elements of comprehension.
Other than this he did not approach any letting go of his awareness. It had
occurred to him that this might be the basic cause of his unyielding refusal
to accept hypnosis. But this explanation failed to completely satisfy him in
that area of his perception in which he was most sensitive it did notfeel like
the complete answer. If the recognizable processes by which he attempted to
understand and control his environment could be compared to the mechanical,
this last could be best compared to something chemical. And this was so
powerful andef-fective a tool in its own way that for practical purposes it
blinded him to the common channels of reasoning. It was extremely difficult
for him to add two and two and get four. It was exceedingly simple and natural
for him to contemplate two by itself, as an isolated element, and find four as
an implied, characteristic possibility of it.
Page 44
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He looked out on all existence through a window that revealed only unique
elements. He approached everything in terms of isolates.Isolates and their
implied possibilities of characteristics. All time, for example, was implied
in any single moment that he might choose to examine. But the moment itself
was unique and unalterably separated from any other moment, even though the
other moment also implied all of time.
It followed that it was almost impossible for him to be tricked or lied to.
Any falsity palmed off on him almost immediately collapsed like
fraudulentlyunderstrength construction under the natural weight of its own
proliferating possibilities. It also followed, and this was not always an
advantage, that he was almost impossible to surprise. Any turn of events,
being implied in the moment preceding its taking place, seemed perfectly
natural to him. As a result he did not question a great many things that he
might normally have been expected to question.
He had not, therefore, questioned the abilities the Chantry members seemed to
claim for themselves. It had seemed to this part of him, at least quite
reasonable thatJase andKantele should attempt to make their escape with him by
means of narcotic smoke, archaic corpse chant, and a block of blasting jelly
with a short fuse. He had, however, allowed himself to get so interested in
what was going on that he found himself left behind and caught in the first
microsecond of the explosion.
He was driven out to the very edges of his consciousness, but no farther. He
was aware of himself moving very swiftly and at the same time being driven by [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]