"I want to learn to fly like that, " Jonathan said, and a strange light glowed in his eyes. "Tell me what to do."

Chiang spoke slowly and watched the younger gull ever so carefully. "To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is," he said, "you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived . . . "

The trick, according to Chiang, was for Jonathan to stop seeing himself as trapped inside a limited body with a forty-two inch wingspan . . . The trick was to know that his true nature lived, as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once across space and time.