Never have I been good at introductions when stumbling upon another during a graviton glide. A long, cold swoop. An awkward hitch in my space. Though, this time, I managed to mumble my name with some sort of decorum.

"Raexx NM," I grumbled in my thoughts. Why I so willingly divulged my name I did not know, but this seemed the proper thing to do.

"Raexx NM, did you say," she thought aloud.

"The same," I echoed through my consciousness.

"I knew a Raexx M from the Tau Ceti plane ages ago," she said, managing to give me the right of way with a wayward whip of her mind.

How I knew that she was allowing me to quickly slip thought upstream I could not say for certain, since she was saying in her thoughts what most women say when, so desperate and determined to gain momentum, they cross wills with a man only to fuse lifespark and deftly dart away.

I thought on her again, not taking too long to guess on which path she would choose for fear of losing my measure of the plutonium 102 between us. Sure, she was a mind-turner, what with all the voluptuous curves that hugged every thought she had. After all, I mean, these things are delicate--an alluring woman's will, a man with whom she helplessly collides amid the dimensions of here and here, constricting the element so critical to sustaining their graviton glide through space-time. Would I yield the mystical spark of creation that gave me life? However, there were numerous sayings among graviton gliders that spoke highly of the custom of exchanging thoughts and flashing lifespark along the way.

Keep in mind, this was the dawn of twenty-seventh century, and graviton gliding had become more than just a means of inter-dimensional travel and sport. Graviton gliding was the mind's ceaseless new path of pleasure.

"Surrender your thoughts to me, Raexx NM, and I'll show you thoughts that all the strings in space-time have concealed," her mind whispered to me, cooing every now and then.

But I would not, then fate conquered

And somehow, suddenly, in that one bleary blue millisecond when her thoughts mingled with mine, I found myself thinking of the saying: "No lifespark ventured, no lifespark gained." And I thought hard to recall the 70 Virginis Alpha maxim: "..." Oh, what was it, again?

"You're a cautious one," she thought aloud, throwing her will at me with that all too peculiar 55 Pegasi pulse. Then pausing to prop up perplexed thoughts. Then stretching out her mind. Now drifting closer to my will beneath the glowing green umbra of the graviton field lines.

I quickly moved away from her outstretched thoughts, mindful of the fact that, had I taken hold of her thoughts, I might fuse lifespark (a potentially fatal move for any living thing without much plutonium 102, a move to be avoided at all costs when graviton gliding).

But I was willing to exchange visions and we did so, quickly.

So it was then, at the moment we swapped second thoughts, that I somehow knew her name--Fabienne XYV--and I said to myself, "Self," (because that is what one thinks aloud when disoriented while graviton gliding between the dimensions) "how is it that I remember this woman's name?" Though, I did not wait for my mind to answer, thereby avoiding the dementia that plagues novice graviton gliders.

"Another time, perhaps," she snapped shut her thoughts in that shapely sort of "S" that taunted me, here and there, reminding me of the time when I first heard the sounds of super-string theory in my childhood on 55 Pegasi, during the spring equinox, when we listened to the harmony of space.

But when I thought out my reply, her thoughts were gone and so was she.

Then I recovered, picked up my thoughts and swiftly sped away, sparing no reflection on what was or what could have been. Of course, there was a smiling sort of humor to it all, and this I thought aloud to myself.

Funny the thoughts of the mind during a graviton glide. Funny the thought that, in some dimension or other, the collective will of she and I may have lived, laughed and loved an entire lifetime and may have somehow forgotten that one magical string still singing in the space-time we once shared. Funny, isn't it? Well, for me this has always been so.