skit #33: excerpts from an owner's manual

[excerpt from Manufacturer's Welcome, pg 7]
Welcome and congratulations! You, intrepid adventurer, are the owner of Chronda's 2442 Ahora, the first and only consumer-class temporal navigation vessel meeting governmental all regulations for public use. Taking advantage of temporal inertia using Chronda's patented Idle Drive, the Ahora boasts unlimited travel, complete energy conservation, unerring precision, unprecedented safety, ageless reliability. Utterly unrivaled.

[excerpt from Consumer Liability, Legality & Licensing, pg 36]
Chronda understands the grave nature of temporal displacement. The Chronda Ahora strictly abides by all statutes defined under the Ethical Time Displacement Act (ETDA) for consumer-class operation and exceeds compliances with all EPA legislation pertaining to timestream perturbances & pollutants. As a consumer-class vessel, the pilot is sequestered from all dangers of time touring.

[excerpt from Consumer Liability, Legality & Licensing, pg 44]
Relax! Leave quibbling over the ETDA legalese to the commerical sector, intrepid adventurer. With the Chronda Ahora, there is no fear of molesting the delicate fabric of time: no fear of knotting time lines (e.g. the prenatal patricide paradox), no fear of introducing catastrophic events (e.g. triggering Colony Collapse Disorder upon 2006CE), no fear of derailing from your native time line, of enacting embarassing anachronisms among the prestigious figures of past and future.

[excerpt from Preparations, pg 54]
Federal laws limiting the operation of vehicles and heavy machinery while sleep deprived, while intoxicated, while enraptured apply to whomever is piloting the Ahora at a given moment.

[excerpt from HUD Layout, pg 64]
Because the pilot travels precisely to the present, the Ahora's controls are both uncomplicated and intuitive.

[excerpt from Operations, pg 67]
1. Enter the vessel.
2. Close and secure the hatch. (Fig 77a)
3. Firmly depress the red button labeled 'Present'. (Fig 77b)
4. Release the button. (Fig 77c)
5. Disembark the vessel.

[excerpt from Travel, Arrival, pg 104]
As with industrial-class time traveling vessels, the journey itself may be quite long. Through recursive-reflexive moment cinching, the traveler does not experience any passage of time. Though the journey appears instantaneous, physical symptoms can arise: nausea, heart palpitations, chills, sweating, bewilderment, etc. For more details, please refer to Travel, Time Sickness, pg 443.

[excerpt from Travel, Arrival, pg 244]
The Chronda Ahora must perform several automatic routines upon arrival before you may disembark. Do not be alarmed by the following:

- White fog effumed from the cabin during Synthetic Earth atmospheric depressurization
- Kaleidoscopic strobelights during subatomic disentanglement via the release of superfluous photons
- High-pitched wavering and warbling during decompression of the Ahora's life support systems

[excerpt from Travel, Return, pg 297]
To return to your native present time, review Operations, pg 67.

[excerpt from Travel, Adjusting, pg 352]
After arriving at your destination, it may take time for even the most seasoned time traveler to acclimate to his or her new habitat. The present may appear drastically different from your native timestream. The denizens of this time stream may have customs different from your own, so be courteous when interfacing. Though rarely received sincerely, the ETDA strictly prohibits public disclosure of your temporal relocation to the present.

[excerpt from Travel, Adjusting, pg 357]
Your excursion into the fourth dimension joined, will join, and joins you to the ranks of modern men. We dance and laugh upon a new and transcendental stratum. Many travelers report a new-found keenness and optimism towards their environs. The present is a bewildering and beautiful place, abundantly faceted with unexamined curiosities.