Poole joined in the laughter, partly in shame-faced reaction to his own fright. To change the subject, he asked Indra the question that was still worrying him.
'All this,' he said, 'it's wonderful – but why go to so much trouble, when anyone in the Tower can reach the real thing, just as quickly?'
Indra looked at him thoughtfully, weighing her words. 'That's not quite true. It's uncomfortable – even dangerous – for anyone who lives above the half-gee level to go down to Earth, even in a hoverchair. So it has to be this -or, as you used to say, Virtual Reality.'
(Now I begin to understand, Poole told himself bleakly. That explains Anderson's evasiveness, and all the tests he's been doing to see if I've regained my strength. I've come all the way back from Jupiter, to within two thousand kilometres of Earth – but I may never again walk on the surface of my home planet. I'm not sure how I will be able to handle this...)
10 – Homage to Icarus
His depression quickly passed: there was so much to do and see. A thousand lifetimes would not have been enough, and the problem was to choose which of the myriad distractions this age could offer. He tried, not always successfully, to avoid the trivia, and to concentrate on the things that mattered – notably his education.
The Braincap – and the book-sized player that went with it, inevitably called the Brainbox – was of enormous value here. He soon had a small library of 'instant knowledge' tablets, each containing all the material needed for a college degree. When he slipped one of these into the Brainbox, and gave it the speed and intensity adjustments that most suited him, there would be a flash of light, followed by a period of unconsciousness that might last as long as an hour. When he awoke, it seemed that new areas of his mind had been opened up, though he only knew they were there when he searched for them. It was almost as if he was the owner of a library who had suddenly discovered shelves of books he did not know he possessed.