"Can't let the secret of matter transmission run around loose, hey? So until you figure out the angles, I'm a prisoner, right?"
"I'd hardly call it that, Granthan. Still...."
I closed my eyes. The matter transmitter—a strange device. A field, not distorting space, but accentuating certain characteristics of a matter field in space-time, subtly shifting relationships....
Just as the mind could compare unrelated data, draw from them new concepts, new parallels....
The circuits of the matter transmitter ... and the patterns of the mind....
The exocosm and the endocosm, like the skin and the orange, everywhere in contact....
Somewhere there was a beach of white sand, and dunes with graceful sea-oats that leaned in a gentle wind. There was blue water to the far horizon, and a blue sky, and nowhere were there any generals with medals and television cameras, or flint-eyed bureaucrats with long schemes....
And with this gentle folding ... thus....
And a pressure here ... so....
I opened my eyes, raised myself on one elbow—and saw the sea. The sun was hot on my body, but not too hot, and the sand was white as sugar. Far away, a seagull tilted, circling.