My Library

We were floating amid thousands upon thousands of white sparkling forms, each animated and vibrating. At first, the brightness and radiation was so overwhelming I was sure I would have to push the panic button or scream for my INSPEC friend. Then it lessened, and I felt the warm sense of understanding entering from all external points of me. I knew the forms had deliberately diverted their radiation, whatever it was, away from me so it conformed to my level of tolerance. I wondered how I must ident to them … probably a dull gray piece of fog. (Welcome to the dorm of the renovated super-human school of compressed learning!) The ident was BB, no mistaking that. (AA decided “dorm” was the best term to use. I have no percept what a dorm is.) I caught the smooth yet vague ident of the woman on the other side of me. She was bright and sparkling exactly as all the others. I knew she was human—or did I?—so must be all of the other sparkling forms. I opened as much as I could. (What’s this place?) (You passed it when you entered earth.) As she sent it to me, I immediately got the flash of the sparkling ring. (This is our reference point until we decide to …) She trailed off and closed. I tried to smooth. (Decide to do what?) She opened slightly. (I, uh … graduate.) I let that one rest for the moment. (What do you do in the meantime?) She rolled lightly. (Well, for one, we make and gather … what did you call it?… loosh. Like honeybees. Or Guernsey cows. Only now we know what we’re doing and why, and we’re happy to do it.) I turned inward and closed. This one I did understand, but the vastness of the change was near-unbelievable. But I was here, and the evidence was all around me. The interstate to freedom. I opened again. (What else do you do?) She lighted smoothly. (Experience Earth Consciousness. Not just in physical human form—remember we could only feel part of it, just a part? Now we go through it completely, from the smallest unicellular life up,