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The ship itself seemed no longer to be just a machine. It represented much more than that. It became alive with meaning as an extension of our humanity, something that grew out the very depths of what humanity is: a monument to something wonderfully rich and immensely substantial. Our humanity came to light in this dimension as something that I too had for far too long grossly taken for granted so that it had been left largely unexplored and unappreciated. It represented a jewel of a universe within a universe. Its central sun was a God of Love, its light infinite Mind, its force a boundless Truth we had barely dared to touch, its atmosphere - the atmosphere of an infinite Soul - that we all expressed in our rich and all-embracing humanity aglow in beauty and life. What is a super nova compared to that? What stellar complexity compared to the infinite complexities involved in making goulash? This pot of goulash before me represented a mental and biophysical technology of near unimaginable dimensions that I was just beginning to fathom, something that only humanity was capable of expressing to the full as far as I could tell. It seemed absurd to place limits on it of any kind.
Between the main meal and the dessert still another one of those near unfathomable dimensions popped into view with an intensity that demanded attention. Two tables in front of me in a direct line of sight sat a beautiful woman. I don't think I touched my dessert that day. I must have stared holes through her as though I had never seen a female human being before. She noticed my staring, smiled and then blushed. I don't know whether it was her hair that struck me, or the shape of her face, or the way she wore her blouse. One word came to mind. A jewel! She was a jewel of a jewel of the universe. I drank in this sight with the same thirst and eagerness as I had done only moments before when the great carpet of stars of the Milky Way galaxy had been stretched out beneath my feet on our way to the black hole.
When I came to my senses again, I noticed that she had left. She was near the door already.
"Go and run after her!" I heard a voice say within.
I couldn't move. I was too shy to even stand up.
I did stand up, though. It took all the strength I had.
The thought came almost like a command, "To hell with your shyness. You must do this!"
I looked around. At this moment I noticed the captain. I would catch his attention if I were to run after her.
"To hell with the captain!" said the voice within.
"What about Natalia?" I asked myself. "What if Natalia will see me running after another woman?"
I couldn't do this.
"You must do this," said the voice again. "Natalia is too intelligent to be hurt."
That's when the Bohr/Miller effect came to mind again as a tempting alternative. Oh God, will it work?
I closed my eyes as tight as I could.
"I'm sorry! How clumsy of me?" I heard someone say to me before I opened them. It was at first as if the voice in my thoughts had spoken again. Except the voice sounded different, clearer, gentler, and less urgent.
That's when I noticed that the someone I had bumped into was her. I opened my eyes fully. There she was, right in front of me. The Bohr/Miller effect had worked. I was suddenly blocking her way. I simply stood there like a stone, immovable. I was flabbergasted, and of course didn't know what to say.
"I wasn't looking where I was going," she added.
I said that it was entirely my fault. I said that I had tried to catch up with her, but hadn't done a good job of it. I wanted to meet you.
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