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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you don’t make it again."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Rifle Range (Virtual Shooting Range) | ||
| Virtual skeet shooting gallery with clay pigeon traps created by aliens. |
Enoch Wallace was a man with a rural upbringing who fought in the Civil War. When he was approached by aliens about running a way station in the galactic chain, he was asked if he would like some sort of entertainment center built into the station. And what sort of "clay pigeons" are offered for skeet shooting?
| The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge... Finally the gallery widened into an oval room and the walls here were padded with a thick gray substance that would entrap a bullet and prevent a ricochet. Enoch walked over to a panel ... and thumbed a tumbler, then stepped quickly out into the center of the room... He stood on a little hillock and in front of him the land sloped down to a sluggish river bordered by a width of marsh. Enoch felt the hair crawling on his scalp and he thrust the rifle out and ready. The very air of this place - wherever it might be - seemed to crawl with danger. |
| Technovelgy from Way Station,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Doubleday in 1963 Additional resources -
|
In this particular skeet shooting session, Enoch had his choice between the following "clay pigeons":
The range had a remarkable variety of contests; in the thousands of times Enoch had used the rifle range, he had never encountered the same creatures twice.
This is what it feels like after the session is over:
Enoch lowered the rifle and drew in a slow and careful breath. It always was like this, he thought. As if it were necessary for him to ease himself, by slow degrees, back to this world after the season of unreality.
He knew that it would be illusion when he kicked on the switch that set into motion whatever was to happen, and he knew it had been illusion when it all had ended. But during the time that it was happening it was not illusion. It was as real and as substantial as if it all were true.
See the entry for dimensino for the very best in totally immersive alien entertainment technologies; from Time is the Simplest Thing, also by Simak.
Here come the toads!
Enoch spun around again, to look back toward the river. Crouched at the edge of the grass was a line of toad-like monstrosities, six feet long and standing three feet high, their bodies the color of a dead fish belly, and each with a single eye, or what seemed to be an eye, which covered a great part of the area just above the snout. The eyes were faceted and glowed in the dim sunlight, as the eyes of a hunting cat will glow when caught in a beam of light.
The target shoot was over.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Way Station
More Ideas
and Technology by Clifford Simak
Tech news articles related to Way Station
Tech news articles related to works by Clifford Simak
Rifle Range (Virtual Shooting Range)-related
news articles:
- ST-2 Shooting Simulator Like Simak's Virtual Rifle Range
- Microsoft Patents Immersive Display
- Microsoft RoomAlive - Your Basement Is The Game
- 'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
- Man Builds 200 Foot Basement Firing Range
| 'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century |
| Lucid Dreams On Demand From Prophetic and Card79 |
| Flyboard Water Jet Shoes Lift Off |
| Cosplay Style Wings Could Work On Moon |
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'The greatest problem of all was the elimination of the human element of braking together with its inevitable time lag.'
'Across the ancient sea floor a dozen tall, blue-sailed Martian sand ships floated, like blue smoke.'
