The Frames were only a realization of the ultimate form of escape. Books, films, sensors, complete total experience - and finally the Frames. The saviors of civilization had shown the way: move the tribes of Americans to Europe, the tribes of the Germans to Spain, the tribes of the English to Switzerland and permutate the combinations endlessly. Use trains, then aircraft, then spaceships.

The Frames of the Thirtieth Century were a logical extension of the Mechanical Age's exploitation of the means of mass travel. Now, whole populations moved to new areas of experience. New worlds - new re-created worlds - were manufactured for them. And it had all begun on Talisker. But whatever had left the monstrous scenery on Talisker's desert had not begun anywhere in our universe.