Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!sri-unix!Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa From: Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Do you recognize this story? Message-ID: <12440@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Thu, 27-Sep-84 22:20:04 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12440 Posted: Thu Sep 27 22:20:04 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Sep-84 04:45:20 EDT Lines: 16 I'm sure this mailing list gets a lot of this, but I'd really appreciate a pointer to a short story with the following rough plot: A young alien boy lives on Earth, and he is unaware of his origins. Apparently he has a sense of ``winding number'', in that if he were to walk around the block, he would feel a desire to turn once in the opposite direction, to regain his equilibrium. Naturally, he attempts to suppress this strange behavior, and as he gets older he is able to tolerate larger winding numbers---at the end of the day he stands on his bed turning and doing backflips. The purpose of the sense is to orient him with respect to his home, which is a distant star. This summary may be considerably distorted, since it is second- or third-hand. Thanks much, Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa