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"[Science fiction] has become big business, where books are merchandised and promoted and distributed and placed on sale like slabs of bacon or cans of soup."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Mass Pointer | ||
| Tells you where the really large (star-sized) masses are while you travel in hyperspace. |
| The mass pointer is a big transparent sphere with a number of blue lines radiating from the center. The direction of the line is the direction of a star; its length shows the star's mass. We wouldn't need pilots if the mass pointer could be hooked into an autopilot, but it can't. Dependable as it is, accurate as it is, the mass pointer is a psionic device. It needs a mind to work it. I'd been using mass pointers for so long that those lines were like real stars. |
| From Crashlander,
by Larry Niven. Published by Del Rey in 1994 Additional resources -
|
From the short story At the Core.
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'The sleek, tapered space shuttle lay immobile upon the private landing field...'
