Read Online Cosmos Incorporated by Maurice G. Dantec - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Maurice G. Dantec
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contemplates this stranger in front of him, hoping that the instruction program will pass along a few memories, or even a scrap or two of information. But nothing happens.
The program does not seem to react at all to what is happening, in fact. It seems completely indifferent to the fact that, while the re-identification process had more or less functioned smoothly up to this point, the mirror phenomenon has obviously caused some sort of serious blockage.
The retractable shower extends slowly behind him, its antiviral diaphragm releasing a tiny spiral galaxy that diffuses in a bronze-colored halo around his head. The machines obey; that is, they regulate the world they perceive. For him, a man whose identity itself is fabricated, nothing seems planned.
The humming of the electric motor stops. Plotkin stares at his image, itemizing every detail, while his ears take in the noises of Capsule 108 and of the entire hotel beyond it.
He is able to sort out the chaotic mélange of sounds in short order: There is the deep, dull infrabass rhythm that must surely come from the building’s hydrogen reactor. It is a sine curve pulsation—rising, falling, rising, falling—with an unvarying frequency, barely discernible beneath the various other sounds filling all auditory space.
There is the noise of the suction pumps that distribute severely rationed water to the capsules. There are the small staccato sounds of electric, lighting, heating, and air-conditioning circuitry. There are the various individual noises of the active antimicrobial filters, antiviral diaphragms, ventilators, airlocks, and alarm and security systems. He also hears the clickety-clacking of the micromachines that burrow through the pipes and cables inside the walls, operating, repairing, tinkering. There is the characteristic vibration of the nacelle elevators as they move up and down the building’s façade. Then there is the wind, blowing gently and causing soft quivers in the structure of polymetallic alloys, composite materials, and Recyclo™ concrete like a ship abandoned on top of a hill after the flood. And there are the crackles of the structure itself, thin threads of sound just barely audible when gusts of wind strike the hilltop.
He listens closely to the living sounds of this organic-mechanical structure; he listens, and he sees, and he hears, and he observes.
But he cannot recognize himself in the mirror.
Some people say—he doesn’t know how he knows this—that life in Grand Junction’s capsule hotels is the best training for life in space. As the last tiny droplet of water is vaporized from his body by the shower’s atomizer, he begins to understand the truth of that phrase.
The retractable shower consists of a square cubicle with a sanitary system, closet, self-lighting mirror, chemical phosphorescent overhead lights, and the shower cylinder itself, which is hardly more than a meter in diameter and whose floor has a partially transparent bubbled surface behind which he can see pressurized water condensing in reservoir tubes before being projected out of the minuscule holes dotted all over the cylinder and into a hemispherical head placed just above his own. The soap is yellow biodegradable cleansing foam that is poured over him by the showerhead after fifteen seconds of water spray. A small rotating brush detaches itself from the ceiling and lowers itself on a thick steel tube; a green light goes on in front of him in the middle of the diaphragm, glowing LED letters informing him that he will be able to use the brush for the next sixty seconds before being rinsed by vaporization and then sprayed by antiviral eau de toilette.
Later, stretched out on the capsule’s retractable bed, waiting for sleep that will not come, he contemplates the night sky of Grand Junction. His attention is caught by an abrupt flash of light that glances off the porthole window. He gets up and stands in front of the large circular pane of
The program does not seem to react at all to what is happening, in fact. It seems completely indifferent to the fact that, while the re-identification process had more or less functioned smoothly up to this point, the mirror phenomenon has obviously caused some sort of serious blockage.
The retractable shower extends slowly behind him, its antiviral diaphragm releasing a tiny spiral galaxy that diffuses in a bronze-colored halo around his head. The machines obey; that is, they regulate the world they perceive. For him, a man whose identity itself is fabricated, nothing seems planned.
The humming of the electric motor stops. Plotkin stares at his image, itemizing every detail, while his ears take in the noises of Capsule 108 and of the entire hotel beyond it.
He is able to sort out the chaotic mélange of sounds in short order: There is the deep, dull infrabass rhythm that must surely come from the building’s hydrogen reactor. It is a sine curve pulsation—rising, falling, rising, falling—with an unvarying frequency, barely discernible beneath the various other sounds filling all auditory space.
There is the noise of the suction pumps that distribute severely rationed water to the capsules. There are the small staccato sounds of electric, lighting, heating, and air-conditioning circuitry. There are the various individual noises of the active antimicrobial filters, antiviral diaphragms, ventilators, airlocks, and alarm and security systems. He also hears the clickety-clacking of the micromachines that burrow through the pipes and cables inside the walls, operating, repairing, tinkering. There is the characteristic vibration of the nacelle elevators as they move up and down the building’s façade. Then there is the wind, blowing gently and causing soft quivers in the structure of polymetallic alloys, composite materials, and Recyclo™ concrete like a ship abandoned on top of a hill after the flood. And there are the crackles of the structure itself, thin threads of sound just barely audible when gusts of wind strike the hilltop.
He listens closely to the living sounds of this organic-mechanical structure; he listens, and he sees, and he hears, and he observes.
But he cannot recognize himself in the mirror.
Some people say—he doesn’t know how he knows this—that life in Grand Junction’s capsule hotels is the best training for life in space. As the last tiny droplet of water is vaporized from his body by the shower’s atomizer, he begins to understand the truth of that phrase.
The retractable shower consists of a square cubicle with a sanitary system, closet, self-lighting mirror, chemical phosphorescent overhead lights, and the shower cylinder itself, which is hardly more than a meter in diameter and whose floor has a partially transparent bubbled surface behind which he can see pressurized water condensing in reservoir tubes before being projected out of the minuscule holes dotted all over the cylinder and into a hemispherical head placed just above his own. The soap is yellow biodegradable cleansing foam that is poured over him by the showerhead after fifteen seconds of water spray. A small rotating brush detaches itself from the ceiling and lowers itself on a thick steel tube; a green light goes on in front of him in the middle of the diaphragm, glowing LED letters informing him that he will be able to use the brush for the next sixty seconds before being rinsed by vaporization and then sprayed by antiviral eau de toilette.
Later, stretched out on the capsule’s retractable bed, waiting for sleep that will not come, he contemplates the night sky of Grand Junction. His attention is caught by an abrupt flash of light that glances off the porthole window. He gets up and stands in front of the large circular pane of
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