Kidnapper slowed to a canter and cruised purposefully through the 
university, then turned north and crossed a bridge into the peninsula that 
contained most of Vancouver proper. The chevaline did a perfectly good job of 
not stepping on anyone, and Hackworth soon learned to stop worrying and trust 
its instincts. This left his eyes free to wander through the sights of 
Vancouver, which had not been advisable when he'd come this way on the 
velocipede. He had not noticed, before, the sheer maddening profusion of the 
place, each person seemingly an ethnic group of one, each with his or her own 
costume, dialect, sect, and pedigree. It was as
if, sooner or later, every part of the world became India and thus ceased to 
function in any sense meaningful to straight-arrow Cartesian rationalists like 
John Percival Hackworth, his family and friends.