The Starcrossed

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To Cordwainer Bird…

May he fly high and strike terror in the hearts of the unjust.

“American ingenuity licked the pollution problem;” said Bernard Finger, glowingly. “And the energy arms too, by damn.”

Tamed and golden in his new Vitaform Process body, Finger was impeccably dressed in the latest neo Victorian style Bengal Lancer business suit, complete with epaulets and an authentic brigadier’s insignia. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his sumptuous, spacious office and gazed fondly out at the lovely pink clouds that blanketed the San Fernando Valley.

The late morning tan blazed out of a perfect blue sky. As far as me eye could see, the entire Greater Los Angeles area—from sparkling sea to the San Berdoo Mountains—was swathed in, perfumed, tinted clouds. Except for a few hilltops poking up tam and there, it all looked like one enormous dollop of pink cotton candy.

“American ingenuity,” Bernard Mugger repeated. “And American know-how! That’s how we beat those Arabs and those bleeding heart conservationists.”

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