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"I wrote many novels which … contained the element of the projected collective unconscious, which made them simply incomprehensible to anyone who read them, because they required the reader to accept my premise that each of us lives in a unique world."
- Philip K. Dick

Hypertracer  
  A device that allows a pursuer to follow a spaceship through hyperspace.  

"What is it?"

"A hypertracer."

"That's not enough. I'm not a foundation man. What is it?"

"It's a device to allow the ship to be traced through hyperspace."

"In other words we can be followed anywhere."

"Yes sir."

Technovelgy from Second Foundation, by Isaac Asimov.
Published by Doubleday in 1953
Additional resources -

Compare to the tracer-bird from Changeling (1980) by Roger Zelazny.

Also, recall the homing beacon from the original Star Wars movie.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Second Foundation
  More Ideas and Technology by Isaac Asimov
  Tech news articles related to Second Foundation
  Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov

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