To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) Read Free Page B

Constantinople, but Blake himself was wanted for the two big ones.
    Temples to sex, raised to a high art...
    Sex, yes, Blake thought grimly, but what about love?
    Does sex come before love? Should love come before sex? Do they have anything to do with each other? Millions of people think not. There is food, sleep, sex, work, and entertainment. Millions of people never think about entertaining themselves. That is for the professionals. Sex, too.
    Where is that noble breed of man who is going to fly to the stars, conquer disease, stop death, end famine and poverty? Billions crowd the Earth in gasping swarms, kept alive by the miracle of fusion power and the benefits derived therefrom. But they are just barely alive. The quality of their lives is deplorable. Blake knew he worked and lived among the top few percent of the population: the Shahs, kings, and energy czars. He knew he sucked at the front teat and existed precariously at the crest. "I pretty things up," be said aloud. He moved with those who had never seen the interior of a ghetto or who had never been hungry, except for the inevitable young beauties, male and female, who always surrounded wealth and power. These willing souls had been desperate to escape the dismal fate of growing old and weak and starving to death, unnoticed in the masses.
    Blake knew the world did not consist solely of millionaires and haunted-eyed wretches starving in the arks' passages: there was a strong and healthy middle class. But the world only had so many resources, and even the recycling that the fusion torches and mass accelerators provided did not conserve those resources efficiently enough for the growing population. A little bit was lost on each recycling, one way or another; and only through technology had man kept his head above water for this long.
    But what is the technology of love?
    Blake shook his head angrily. I'm perverted, he thought. I live only in the future, where there is love and peace. And that future might never come! I don't want a harem. Just one woman – the right woman.
    Blake smiled ruefully at himself. Self-pity is such a degrading emotion, he thought. He slammed his fist down on the worktable, and a tiny round bed in the publisher's penthouse model flipped over. Blake lurched away and went into his office.
    His was an office to inspire confidence. The models and photos were near the entry door, where they would be seen first. Closer to his desk, on the walls and floor surrounding it, were more specific examples of his taste and signs of his prestige. The warm-toned walls were paneled in expensive real wood and were considerably more permanent than the walls of his outer lobby, which could be cosmetically changed for effect. On shelves were relics of the ancient world, as well as the modern and near-past. He prized a pair of Mesopotamian sculptures and a Babylonian tablet the Shah had given him. A Greek head and a magnificent Sioux headdress under glass. A Picasso plate, a Coe assemblage, an intricate breastplate for a ficticious Amazon mercenary by Caruthers. A brick from the Grand Hall ruin near Ares Center on Mars. A lunar opal floating in a cube of crystal ... The past, the present, and the future.
    A painting by Otis Flu, an original photoprint by Coogan, a small Cilento sensatron repro cube, and an authentic Van Gogh paintbrush used in a collage by Powers all hung on the walls. Each had been carefully selected to impress and awe, either directly or subconsciously.
    A polished cube of Tycho marble on his desk held a lighter, and a chip of stone stolen from the tomb of Cheops was fashioned into a tiny pyramid near it.
    Confidence, awe, and admiration were the tools of the modem environmentalist's trade. "Trust me, I know best": the patois of the expert everywhere and every-when.
    Blake Mason snorted, thumbed a stud on his desk, and turned toward the wall as a rosewood panel slid silently upward. An enormous screen lit up, on which a dusky brunette with skin