Chapter 12 Chapter 10 Wax Wing Spreads Its Wings

His frustration quickly evaporated: there was so much to do and see.Even if 1,000 lives might not be enough, the question is which one to choose among the countless entertainments this century has to offer.He tried, not always successfully, to avoid the trivial and focus on the more important things—especially education. Brain caps, as well as book-sized players-of course called "brain boxes", are of great value here.Before long, he had a library of "fast food knowledge" discs, each containing enough knowledge to be worth a college degree.When one of them was inserted into the brain box that day, adjusted to the most suitable intensity and speed, there would be a flash of light, and then he would have a novel unconscious.When he woke up, it was as if his mind had opened up a new field; but if he didn't look for it deliberately, he wouldn't be aware of the existence of that knowledge.It is like the owner of the library suddenly discovering a pile of books that belonged to him.

In general, he is the master of his own time.Out of obligation—and gratitude—he acceded whenever possible to requests from scientists, historians, writers, and artists, often in mediums he didn’t understand.There were also countless invitations from the residents of the four great towers, but in fact he was forced to decline them all. Most alluring - and hardest to resist - are invitations from the beautiful planets below. "Of course," Professor Anderson had told him, "if you go down with a proper life support system, you'll be fine for a short time, but you won't feel happy. It might even weaken your neuromuscular system even more, which doesn't A real recovery from a 1,000-year slumber."

Another of his guardians, Indira Wallace, protected him from unwanted harassment and advised him which invitations to accept and which to decline.For him, the socio-political structure of this complex civilization will probably never be understood.But he soon learned that, while theoretical class distinctions had disappeared, there were still thousands of supercitizens.George Orwell was right, some people will always be more equal than others. There have been times in the past, conditioned by 21st-century experience, that Poole has wondered: Who the hell is paying for the board and lodging—will he be handed the astro-mathematical equivalent of a hotel bill someday?But Indira soon assured him that he was a unique and priceless exhibit, and he didn't have to worry about such mundane problems at all.Whatever he wanted - if it made sense, they'd get it for him.He didn't know what the bottom line was, but he never imagined that one day he would try to find these bottom lines.

Everything that matters in Full Hits happens by accident.He was setting his wall monitor to silent random browsing when a startling image grabbed his attention. "Stop browsing! Turn up the volume!" he yelled, and it didn't really need to be so loud. He had heard the music before, but it took several seconds to recognize it.It helps a lot, actually, to have this vision on his wall, full of winged figures flying gracefully around.However, if Tchaikovsky saw this "Swan Lake" performance, I'm afraid he would be surprised, because those dancers are really flying...

Poole stared at it for several minutes, until he was sure it was real and not a simulation: it was impossible, even in his own day, to be so sure.Presumably this ballet was performed in a low-gravity environment—from certain scenes, it can be seen that it is a rather large venue.Maybe even right here at the Tower of Africa. I'll try it, Poole decided to himself.NASA banned him from freestyle skydiving (one of his favorite pastimes), and he still hates it.He also understood what the General Administration was looking for, because they didn't want to risk their precious investment.Doctors were concerned about his early hang gliding accident, but fortunately, his young bones have fully healed.

"Well," he thought, "nobody can stop me now...except Professor Anderson..." Much to Poole's relief, Anderson actually thought it was an excellent idea, and Poole was also pleased to learn that each tower had its own "pigeon cage," right in the tenth of the G layer. They spent days customizing his wings, and the result was nothing like the elegant style worn by the Swan Lake dancers.A stretchable membrane replaced the feathers, and when he grasped the handle on the stand, he realized that he might not look like a bird, but more like a bat.However, what he said to his trainer: "Fly, vampire!" was a no-brainer, as the guy had clearly never heard of vampires.

He was restrained by light armor for the first few lessons, so he couldn't fly anywhere while learning basic wings and the most important control and stabilization techniques.Like many non-innate skills, this is not as easy as it seems. He thought it was stupid to wear safety armor, how could anyone get hurt at one-tenth of gravity? ——But I am very happy, I only need to take a few lessons, and his astronaut training will undoubtedly be of great help.The flying experts told him he was the best of them all, but maybe he said that to every one of them. After flying back and forth more than 10 times in a 40-meter-square hall dotted with obstacles that couldn't bother him, Poole got permission to fly solo for the first time.He felt like he was 19 again, sitting in an old Cessna at the Flagstaff Flying Club getting ready to take off.

Pigeon cage, this is an ordinary name, and the venue for this maiden voyage was not specially prepared for him.But here it seemed to be larger than the space with forests and gardens in the lunar layer below.The two are actually about the same size, because it also occupies an entire floor of the conical tower.The cylindrical space is 500 meters high and more than 4 kilometers wide. It looks huge because it has no visual focus at all.The walls are a uniform light blue color, which also gives the impression of an endless space. Poole didn't quite believe the flying expert's boast: "You can have any scene you want." He was going to make things difficult for him, to give him an impossible challenge.However, his first flight was at a dizzying 50 meters altitude with no visual entertainment at all.Of course, on Earth, a person could break his neck if he fell from the same height; A web of thick cords.The room was like a giant bouncing bed, Poole thought, and he could have fun here—even without the wings.

With a powerful, downward flap of wings, Poole gradually rose into the air.It seems that it has risen hundreds of meters in an instant, and it continues to rise. "Slow down!" said the flying expert, "I can't keep up with you!" Poole adjusted a little and tried the roll slowly.He felt that not only his head became lighter, but also his body (less than ten kilograms!) At the same time, he wondered whether the oxygen concentration had increased. It's wonderful—it's so different from zero gravity, because it's also physically challenging.The closest thing is probably scuba diving: he hopes that the birds here will rival the fish that accompany him on his dives in tropical reefs.

The flying expert asked him to carry out a series of courses - rolling, circling, flying upside down, circling... Finally he said: "I have nothing to teach you, now let's enjoy the scenery." For a moment, Poole nearly lost control—perhaps he was expected to make a fool of himself.Because, without even the slightest warning, he was suddenly surrounded by snow-covered peaks and was flying down a narrow passage just a few meters from the jagged rock face. Of course it can't be true.Those mountains are as ethereal as the clouds, and he can go directly through them as long as he is happy.Nevertheless, he changed direction, flew away from the rock face (one of the protruding rocks had a nest of eagles on it; he felt that if he flew a little closer, he could reach out and touch the two eggs in the nest), and towards Fly to the wide sky.

The mountains disappeared and suddenly it was night.And then, the stars came out—not just a few meager clusters in the barren Earth sky, but a sky full of stars, beyond count.Not just stars, but distant spiral galaxies and globular clusters packed with stars. Even if he was magically teleported to some world that actually had such a sky, it couldn't be true.Because the galaxies kept receding before his eyes.Stars are dying, exploding, being born in stellar hotbeds of fiery fog.One second must count as the passage of a million years... This spectacular scene vanished just as quickly as it had begun.He was back in the empty sky, just himself and his coach, in the bland blue cylindrical space of the pigeon coop. "I think that's enough for today." The flying expert hovered a few meters above Poole. "What view would you like next time?" Without the slightest hesitation, Poole answered the question with a smile.