sphere

Overview

The sphere is one of the three standard personal items—“the bolt, the chord, and the sphere”—carried by Avout within a Math. Made of Newmatter and controlled by touch, it can be shrunk for carrying or expanded for practical tasks. Under guidance given for Voco travel, Evoked avout keep spheres small and avoid using them to make light under the open sky.

Description and Use

• Material and control: A porous membrane whose pores act as tiny pumps, the sphere can move air in or out. It recognizes hand gestures; an “unscrewing” motion expands it, and a counterclockwise circling motion has been shown to shrink it to palm size. Its springiness (stiff versus stretchy) can be adjusted, letting it behave like a hard pill or a supple, deformable cushion.
• Everyday practice: Common uses include seating, balance practice, and carrying when reduced.
• Protective behavior: Under concentrated impact (e.g., bullets in testing), a sphere stretches deeply and rebounds, trailing a narrow “finger” of material behind a penetrating projectile. This behavior was described as potentially helpful for extracting bullets after they pass through tissue.
• Field improvisation: Observed extramuros uses include wedging the expanded sphere between ice walls as part of a crevasse self‑rescue, and forming a cocooning air‑bed when wrapped in a bolt and tied with a chord to tow an injured companion over snow.

Provenance/Ownership

• Property limits: For millennia, avout accounts describe a ban limiting personal property to the bolt, the chord, and the sphere.
• Production: Limited quantities are made within maths from Newmatter for these permitted items.

Notable Mentions

• Inside the walls, avout have been seen shrinking a sphere to hand size by circling motions, balancing on a head‑sized sphere, and tossing it to demonstrate a resilient bounce.
• In a live‑fire demonstration, an avout tested a sphere against bullets, noting deep stretch and rebound and theorizing about safer extraction of projectiles.
• During an arduous crossing in the mountains, an avout used a sphere’s gesture control and adjustable stiffness for crevasse escape and later to immobilize and transport an injured man across snow.