Uptown Local and Other Interventions (32 page)

BOOK: Uptown Local and Other Interventions
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In this world, a man with no money and no past slowly began patenting astonishing devices—pocket anti-gravity generators, for example, that could effortlessly carry your luggage or boost a ship into orbit. With the growing proceeds from his inventions, he bought himself privacy, and an identity, and positions at JPL and ESA and NASA. He also used his money to help some politicians— people who knew that the Universe was worth spreading out in for its own sake. The attitude spread, too. And eventually there was a Tranquillity Center, the great tourist and industrial center of the Moon, and a Tycho Dome and a Jura Base; and after that, starships that leapt out into the endless night on tails of fire and explored the worlds at speeds that left light panting behind. Kennedy Spaceport was built, and a hundred others; advances brought home from other worlds helped water the deserts and make the great cities run, made power cheap, and showed how to straighten bent and hurting minds. Hunger became a story of the bad old days, and war rumbled under the surface sometimes but was slowly being talked out of existence; for minds that perceive themselves as part of one tiny speck in the immensities tend to cherish the speck too much to blow it up. And there was too much to do—a whole galaxy to explore, wonders waiting, alien minds to understand. Humanity began to become a very busy and delighted group.

That was the world Nita and Kit eventually found themselves growing up in. It didn’t happen in a year, or two, or ten. But it happened, as it’s happened in other worlds, in other ways. And if Tom suspected anything, he kept his mouth shut. It never does to remind people (even when things work out well) how completely we make our own worlds: it gives them ideas.

Look closely at your next subway token.

And speak to strangers.

 

***

 

 

To find out more about Diane Duane’s

science fiction and fantasy novels,

her other short stories,

and her work in film, TV, comics and computer games,

please visit

http://www.dianeduane.com

 

 

 

BOOK: Uptown Local and Other Interventions
8.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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