Year 2, day 122: Day 736 since my arrival
Last night I dreamed of flying.
It’s not something I’m very good at. I’m afraid once I decided to become an engineer and design starships I didn’t pay much attention to my esper lessons. But I’ve been forced to do a lot of esper over the last two years. Teleporting, perceiving, and telekinesis, mostly, but I’m dong all three much better than I ever did at home. So why not try levitation?
Not flying, exactly. But one of the things I’ve found I can do is teleport to a distinctive landmark. The higher I am, the better my chances of spotting a distant landmark I can use as a destination. So why not levitate to gain that height?
It does take just as much energy as I would need to climb to the same height. There is a way of getting around that, by using the energy of falling water or a landslide, but I’m going to have to learn how all over again. Even using my own energy, though, I managed to rise far enough into the air to see a distinctive tree and teleport to a spot above it. With practice, I could explore in much larger steps. And it wouldn’t wear out my sandals.
I think I will see what the computer library holds on levitation.
Much later in the day
Why didn’t my esper instructor tell me that all of that counterweighting and similar jargon simply referred to the conservation laws of physics? No wonder teleporting to a place at a higher altitude exhausts me; I’m using my own energy instead of swapping energy and momentum with my surroundings! I tried teleporting to the top of a butte while moving a similar mass of dirt and rock down, and it took almost no energy. The same with levitating to butte height. Water would work even better as an exchange medium, but for that I’ll need to find a waterfall.
So, my first priority is to practice exchanging energy and momentum with my surroundings, which should make teleporting much easier, and the second is to find a convenient waterfall. I wonder if I could locate that gather?
Author’s note: Jarn has finally worked out a calendar. He’s decided to start each year with the northward equinox, and to count the year he arrived as year 0. His Journal to date is on my Author Site.
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