The Shield

Начало книги

For a moment, as he looked across megalopolis, something like terror caught him. What do I do now?

Reddened by haze, the sun was dropping behind a Center, which bulked black against a sky where aircraft moved like glittering midges. The whole horizon was full of such unitized sub-cities and company towers. But closer at hand Koskinen saw how the skyline was an illusion. The great buildings stood well apart, separated by a huddle of warehouses, factories, low-class tenements. Tubeways knit them together, curves which soared and gleamed in the last sunshine; but underneath lay a prosaic web of streets, belts and monorails. In the early darkness below the walls, lights had already switched on, twinkling from ground-level windows, outdoor lamps, cars and trains. The silence in this room, a hundred stories up, made the spectacle unreal, a glimpse from a foreign planet.

Abruptly Koskinen turned the viewall off. The scene in it reverted to a random flow of pastel colors. He didn’t play the records which a list offered him, not even the Hawaiian surf or the Parisian cabaret which had fascinated him this morning. Keep your shadow shows, he thought. I want something I can touch and taste and smell.

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