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"The planet's immune system is doing everything it can. The planet's immune system is doing everything it can."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| 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. |
| From Prominent Author,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by If in 1954 Additional resources -
|
How did it work?
Compare to the Ramsbotham Gate from Robert Heinlein's 1955 novel Tunnel in the Sky and the vibra-transmitter from Frank K. Kelly's 1933 story Into the Meteorite Orbit.
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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