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"We're about 20 minutes away from the point where Clarke's law kicks in and technology becomes indistinguishable from magic."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Orbital Terminus | ||
| An airport in space; a terminal for low earth orbit flights. |
The obvious model for Gibson's terminus is the retro cool spaceport used in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
| Japan Air's orbital terminus was a white toroid studded
with domes and ringed with the dark-rimmed oval openings
of docking bays. The terminal above Marly's g-web-though
above had temporarily lost its usual meaning displayed an
exquisitely drafted animation of the torus in rotation, while a
series of voices in seven languages announced that the
passengers on board JAL's Shuttle 580, Orly Terminus I,
would be taxied to the terminal at the earliest opportunity.
JAL offered apologies for the delay, which was due to routine
repairs underway in seven of the twelve bays.
The interior of the JAL toroid was so bland, so unremarka- ble, so utterly like any crowded airport, that she felt like laughing. There was the same scent of perfume, human tension, and heavily conditioned air, and the same background hum of conversation. The point-eight gravity would have made it easier to carry a suitcase, but she only had her black purse. Now she took her tickets from one of its zippered inner pockets and checked the number of her connecting shuttle against the columns of numbers arrayed on the nearest wall screen. |
| Technovelgy from Count Zero,
by William Gibson. Published by Arbor House in 1986 Additional resources -
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| Tweel - (Almost) A Smart Wheel |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
