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LET'S GO SURFING!

*Look!!!* hollered Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.

«Where?» replied Clear«»White«»Whistle, searching the ocean around it with sonar pings generated by its multiton fluid body. «I see nothing.»

*I didn't say 'see'! I said 'look'! Up in the nothing near Sky¤Rock!*

Clear«»White«»Whistle quickly formed an eye out of its amorphous jelly-like substance and used it to look upward into the waterless void above the ocean, where its sonar was nearly useless for seeing things. It adjusted the shape of the gelatine sphere into a crude lens until the heavens blossomed with hundreds of tiny pinpoints of light. A new light was now in the sky. It varied rapidly in brightness and moved away from the Hot-limed side of the rocky planetoid above them, toward an approaching moon-sized silvery ellipse.

«It is the rocket of the humans. They are leaving Sky¤Rock to return to their circle in the sky that flies in the light of Hot.»

*That means the humans didn't foam out while surfing the Big¤Bloop to Sky¤Rock. Say! I feel another wave coming!*

«I wonder if they'll ever come back .»

*Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. But until they do LET'S GO SURFING!*

Cover Art by David Mattingly


ORDER Paperback

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First printing, July 1998

Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-671-72153-4
ISBN-10: 0-671-72153-4

Copyright© 1998 by Dr. Robert L. Forward & Julie Forward Fuller

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original
Baen publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com

Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webscription.net


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank the following people, who helped us in several technical areas: Dana Andrews, Paul L. Blass, Carl Richard Feynman, Charles W. Fuller, David K. Lynch, Patrick L. McGuire, Hans P. Moravec, Jef Poskanzer, Daniel G. Shapiro, Vernor Vinge, and Mark Zimmermann.

The "Christmas Bush" motile was jointly conceived by Hans P. Moravec and Robert L. Forward, and drawn by Jef Poskanzer using a CAD system.

All final art was expertly prepared by the great group of graphic artists at Multi-Graphics in Marina Del Rey, California.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Robert L. Forward writes science fiction novels and short stories, as well as science fact books and magazine articles. Through his scientific consulting company, Forward Unlimited, he also engages in contracted research for the Government of the United States of America on the topics of advanced space propulsion and exotic physical phenomena. Dr. Forward obtained his Ph.D. in Gravitational Physics from the University of Maryland. For his thesis he constructed and operated the world's first bar antenna for the detection of gravitational radiation. The antenna is now at the Smithsonian museum.

For 31 years, from 1956 until 1987, when he left in order to spend more time writing, Dr. Forward worked at the Hughes Aircraft Company Corporate Research Laboratories in Malibu, California in positions of increasing responsibility, culminating with the position of Senior Scientist on the staff to the Director of the Laboratories. During that time he constructed and operated the world's first laser gravitational radiation detector, invented the rotating gravitational mass sensor, published over 65 technical publications, and was awarded 18 patents.

From 1983 to the present, Dr. Forward has had a series of contracts with the U.S. Air Force and NASA to explore the forefront of physics and engineering in order to find new concepts that will produce breakthroughs in space power and propulsion. He has published journal papers and contract reports on antiproton annihilation propulsion, space tethers, laser beam and microwave beam propulsion, negative matter propulsion, light-levitated perforated sail communication satellites, space warps, and a method for extracting electrical energy from vacuum fluctuations.

In addition to his professional publications, Dr. Forward has written over 80 popular science articles for publications such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica Yearbook, Omni, New Scientist, Aerospace America, Science Digest, Science 80, Analog, and Galaxy. His most recent science fact books are FUTURE MAGIC and MIRROR MATTER: PIONEERING ANTIMATTER PHYSICS (with Joel Davis). His science fiction novels are DRAGON'S EGG and its sequel STARQUAKE, THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGONFLY (also published in a longer version as ROCHEWORLD), MARTIAN RAINBOW, TIMEMASTER, and now RETURN TO ROCHEWORLD with his daughter Julie Forward Fuller. The novels are of the "hard" science fiction category, where the science is as accurate as possible.

Dr. Forward is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Senior Member of the American Astronautical Society, and a member of the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi, Sigma Pi Sigma, National Space Society, and the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Julie Forward Fuller turned to writing in desperation after running out of things to read. This is her second novel, the first being a fantasy, Wyrmmount. She writes while others sleep, which lets her avoid the distractions of telephone, television, and talk, and gives her an excuse to sleep until noon.

Mrs. Fuller grew up as a happy, active member of the Forward family. She now lives in Palmdale, California with her husband, Charlie Fuller, and enjoys, most of all, the mothering of their three wonderful daughters.

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