Nova

by Samuel R. Delany

The passions that come through the diversity of a complete world, or a whole man, he knew—but did not like. He dealt with this dislike two ways. For the inner manifestations, he was writing a novel. A jeweled recorder his parents had given him when he won his scholarship hung from a chain at his waist. To date it contained some hundred thousand words of notes. He had not begun the first chapter. For the outer manifestations, he had chosen this isolate life below his educational capacity, not even particularly in keeping with his temperament. He was slowly moving further and further away from the focus of human activity which for him was still a world called Earth. He had completed his course as a cyborg stud only a month ago. He had arrived on this moon of Neptune—the last moon of any size in the Solar System—that morning.