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"One could imagine a very ascetic sort of life ... where the body is ignored. This is something I've played with in my books, where people hate to be reminded sometimes that they have bodies, they find it very slow and tedious."
- William Gibson

Caliban Beachball  
  Dwelling place for unusual lifeform who make jumpdoors possible.  

A jumpdoor is an energy passageway that allows a person to move from one part of the galaxy to another instantly. If you're thinking that this takes star-sized energy, you're right.

The beachball was some six meters in diameter. It sat solidly on the [lava] shelf, about half a meter of its bottom surface hidden by a depression in the rock, as though it had melted out a resting place.

Knobs and indentations marked the opaque metallic surface.

Technovelgy from Whipping Star, by Frank Herbert.
Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1969
Additional resources -

How do you let the Caliban know you've come to call? "Find a 'nippled extrusion' and you knock on it."

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Whipping Star
  More Ideas and Technology by Frank Herbert
  Tech news articles related to Whipping Star
  Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert

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