Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [0]
Front
Investigation: Act One The Trebizond Tower
Intermission One: A Lover in the Mother's Arms
Investigation: Act Two: Across Manhattan
Intermission Two: A Pioneer on the Furthest Shore
Investigation: Act Three: Across America
Intermission Three: A Mind at the End of Its Tether
Investigation: Act Four: The Heights and the Depths
Intermission Four: A Teacher and His Pupil
Investigation: Act Five: From Land to Sea
Intermission Five: A Failed God and His Creation
Finale: Eden Approached from the East
Epilogue: Happily Ever After
End of Book
Front
Architects of Emortality
Brian Stableford
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ARCHITECTS OF EMORTALTTY
Copyright © 1999 by Brian Stableford
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by David G. Hartwell
A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175Fifth Avenue New York,NY10010
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN: 0-812-57643-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-22201 First, edition: October 1999 First mass market edition: May 2000 Printed in the United States of America0987654321 For Jane, and all who nourish fond remorse Acknowledgments A much shorter and substantially different version of this story was published in the October 1994 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. I owe considerable debts of gratitude to Gardner Dozois, for publishing that novella and reprinting it in his annual collection of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, and to Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, the original Gustave Moreau, John Milton, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, without whose contributions and general inspiration the story would have been much slighter. I should also like to thank Sonia Feldman for the shamirs, Jane Stableford for proofreading services and helpful commentary, and Andy Robertson for being prepared to claim that he had read every word.
Redundant returns removed. TOC Added. eBookMan v1.1
CONTENTS
Front
Investigation: Act One The Trebizond Tower
Intermission One: A Lover in the Mother's Arms
Investigation: Act Two: Across Manhattan
Intermission Two: A Pioneer on the Furthest Shore
Investigation: Act Three: Across America
Intermission Three: A Mind at the End of Its Tether
Investigation: Act Four: The Heights and the Depths
Intermission Four: A Teacher and His Pupil
Investigation: Act Five: From Land to Sea
Intermission Five: A Failed God and His Creation
Finale: Eden Approached from the East
Epilogue: Happily Ever After
Initiations: A King in His Countinghouse
Gabriel King stared out of the window of his thirty-ninth-floor apartment in the TrebizondTower. He was looking at theislandofManhattan, where the apparatus of civilization was being slowly but surely demolished. The old skyline was decaying; the sharp sharks’ teeth of the traditional skyscrapers were collapsing into mere blunted molars. One by one, the oldest buildings in the world were gently folding into themselves, meekly putting themselves away.
The sight made Gabriel feel slightly sad. It should, in theory, have had the opposite effect; he, after all, was the man primarily responsible for the many kinds of rot that had set in and the voracity of their consumption. Every minute diminution of the classic silhouette sent a surge of credit into his multifarious bank accounts. The MegaMall was paying him generously for his efforts, as it always did. Those who had served the MegaMall well—as Gabriel always had, in dealings under the counter as well as above it—were always well served in their turn*****.
The squat foundations of the new city were already in place behind and among the decaying edifices, and the shamirs were ready to begin the reshaping. They too were Gabriel’s slaves, and their labors would maintain the flow of his capital, but contemplation of the endeavors and rewards to come could not