To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) Read Free
Author: William Rotsler
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who enjoyed being the center of attention as always. She thrust out her ample bosom and puffed up her education – only one of which was real. Blake sat motionless and silent as Lilly, in her blundering way, took the floor away from Chariot. She began to talk about her own affairs of the heart, particularly about her adventures with younger men.
Blake stood up and slipped out of the group, glad not to be on the grill. He felt Chariot's eyes on him as he went through the doors to the terrace. Blake kept his face calm – not blank, but calm.
The terrace was wide, and the greenery grew in lush profusion from large planters faced with genuine Roman carvings. Lady Faring's condominium home was high on the western flank of the great pyramid of Sunset arcolog. The bubbles, domes, and windows of surrounding condos glinted in the night, glowing balls and dots across the great face of the arcology structure, home of over a half-million people. Up here at the top and on the exterior flanks were the twenty-first-century condos of the rich. Inside and below were the boxes of the less-rich, and deep inside were the burrows of the poor.
Below, the flowing rivers of light that marked the freeways between the man-made living mountains continued their never-ending movement. The Venice arcolog to the west and the distant humps of Bel Air and Camelot glittered and shone, rising above the hills and the petite arks to the north and south. On the other side of Sunset, out of sight from the Faring terrace, were the others: Mariana, Great Western, California Tower, Casa Laguna, Heaven, Astro, Ciudad de Oro, Sun City, Maaravier, and Urbo Nova. Housing a half-or three-quarters of a million each, these self-contained city buildings were designed and built with factories within and beneath. Monorails and aircars linked tower to tower. Thousands of cable-television lines linked millions of terminals in a vast information and entertainment system.
Over the Santa Monica Mountains the tips of Koma, Prudential Towers, and the more distant Star could be seen. Beyond, to the north and west along the curve of shore, were Oaktree, Santa Rosa, Camarillo City, Oxnard Center, Ventura, Skycity, and others under construction along the coast to Santa Barbara. To the south, toward the desert, where the towers were faced with huge solar panels and the desert was roofed with them, were still more arcological towers.
Arcologs dotted the landscapes of the world in ever-increasing numbers. They were much more efficient to service, and took up less space, giving up much land that was vitally needed to grow crops. Even many of the planned park interspaces between the big arks had been filled with the overflow of people, buildings, and factories. The arcolog concept had begun with Paolo Soled in the late twentieth-century and his practical example, Arcosanti, the first arcolog, built near Phoenix, Arizona. "Architecture is in process of becoming the physical definition of a multilevel, human ecology," he had written. "It will be arc-ology." The nearest early example was the ocean liner, then the first true deep-space ships.
The pressure of a growing world population and the need to use more efficiently the Earth's resources had brought about the realization of the arcology concept. In urban areas, where the pressure was greatest and land the most precious, the huge structures rose to populations of seven and eight hundred thousand each. There were also many smaller ones, some with as few as ten or twenty thousand, built in outlying districts. Some "micro-arks," housing only a couple of thousand, were built on the same principles. Castillo del Aire, or "Air-castle," near Madrid, had, on the other hand, a million inhabitants. Chicago's Babeldiga had 1,200,000. Novanoah, a huge floating island under construction in the Indian Ocean, was designed for nearly 2,500,000 inhabitants, who would derive 80 percent of their food from the sea itself.
Arcologs were masterpieces of
Blake stood up and slipped out of the group, glad not to be on the grill. He felt Chariot's eyes on him as he went through the doors to the terrace. Blake kept his face calm – not blank, but calm.
The terrace was wide, and the greenery grew in lush profusion from large planters faced with genuine Roman carvings. Lady Faring's condominium home was high on the western flank of the great pyramid of Sunset arcolog. The bubbles, domes, and windows of surrounding condos glinted in the night, glowing balls and dots across the great face of the arcology structure, home of over a half-million people. Up here at the top and on the exterior flanks were the twenty-first-century condos of the rich. Inside and below were the boxes of the less-rich, and deep inside were the burrows of the poor.
Below, the flowing rivers of light that marked the freeways between the man-made living mountains continued their never-ending movement. The Venice arcolog to the west and the distant humps of Bel Air and Camelot glittered and shone, rising above the hills and the petite arks to the north and south. On the other side of Sunset, out of sight from the Faring terrace, were the others: Mariana, Great Western, California Tower, Casa Laguna, Heaven, Astro, Ciudad de Oro, Sun City, Maaravier, and Urbo Nova. Housing a half-or three-quarters of a million each, these self-contained city buildings were designed and built with factories within and beneath. Monorails and aircars linked tower to tower. Thousands of cable-television lines linked millions of terminals in a vast information and entertainment system.
Over the Santa Monica Mountains the tips of Koma, Prudential Towers, and the more distant Star could be seen. Beyond, to the north and west along the curve of shore, were Oaktree, Santa Rosa, Camarillo City, Oxnard Center, Ventura, Skycity, and others under construction along the coast to Santa Barbara. To the south, toward the desert, where the towers were faced with huge solar panels and the desert was roofed with them, were still more arcological towers.
Arcologs dotted the landscapes of the world in ever-increasing numbers. They were much more efficient to service, and took up less space, giving up much land that was vitally needed to grow crops. Even many of the planned park interspaces between the big arks had been filled with the overflow of people, buildings, and factories. The arcolog concept had begun with Paolo Soled in the late twentieth-century and his practical example, Arcosanti, the first arcolog, built near Phoenix, Arizona. "Architecture is in process of becoming the physical definition of a multilevel, human ecology," he had written. "It will be arc-ology." The nearest early example was the ocean liner, then the first true deep-space ships.
The pressure of a growing world population and the need to use more efficiently the Earth's resources had brought about the realization of the arcology concept. In urban areas, where the pressure was greatest and land the most precious, the huge structures rose to populations of seven and eight hundred thousand each. There were also many smaller ones, some with as few as ten or twenty thousand, built in outlying districts. Some "micro-arks," housing only a couple of thousand, were built on the same principles. Castillo del Aire, or "Air-castle," near Madrid, had, on the other hand, a million inhabitants. Chicago's Babeldiga had 1,200,000. Novanoah, a huge floating island under construction in the Indian Ocean, was designed for nearly 2,500,000 inhabitants, who would derive 80 percent of their food from the sea itself.
Arcologs were masterpieces of
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