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"Another reason why privacy could be just a passing fad, terrorism is going to get too good. [1997]"
- Larry Niven
 |
| Jiffi-scuttler | ||
| A device providing near instantaneous travel between two points. |
Henry Ellis had a way to avoid the commute that was (even in 1954, when this story was written) becoming intolerable.
| In the back yard stood a big circular hoop that gleamed brightly in the mid-morning sun. Ellis turned some controls at the base. The hoop changed from silver to shimmering red.
"Here I go!" Ellis shouted. He stepped briskly into the hoop. The hoop fluttered about him. There was a faint pop. The glow died. "Good Heavens!" Mrs. Lawrence gasped. "He's gone!" Henry Ellis was in a sort of tunnel. All around hima gray, formless tube stretched out in both directions, a sort of hazy sewerpipe. Framed in the opening behind him, he could see the faint outline of his house... And in front of him... New York City. |
| Technovelgy from Prominent Author,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by If in 1954 Additional resources -
|
How did it work?
Compare to the gate from The Gate to Xoran (1931) by Hal K. Wells, the Invasion Gate for Aliens from Monsters of Mars (1931) by Edmond Hamilton, the gateway from Wanderer of Infinity (1933) by Harl Vincent, Ramsbotham Gate from Tunnel in the Sky (1955) by Robert Heinlein, the farcaster from Hyperion (1989) by Dan Simmons.
The Jiffi-scuttler bridged distances non-spatially, through another dimension of some kind (they hadn't explained that part too clearly to him).
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
