Adiamante by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

you have to do is seal the place, and start the system. Once it’s sealed, it’s good for twenty or thirty millennia.”
    My eyes drifted back to the center bay window that displayed the city and the harbor below.
    â€œSit down,” said Elanstan. “You don’t have to worry. There’s a full-circuit net repeater here. We’ve checked it out.”
    At that moment, as I sank into the chair with the velvet-like cushioned armrests, I hadn’t even considered the net repeater. My eyes went back to the window across the table from me, where a huge watership slipped out toward the sea toward a massive cable-supported bridge that crossed the mouth of the bay.
    I recognized that ancient scene—pre—collapse Sfrisco—but only because of some holos of the great bridge that had been buried in the locial records. It had been years ago, before I’d even met Morgen, and I’d wondered then at the need for such a massive bridge. The bridge and the city were long gone. Between the faults, the small stars, and the sledges of death, the area’s topography only faintly resembled what it had been.
    Then the music began, and, once more, the sounds were something I had not heard before. Oh, we have pianos, and strings, and woodwinds—but no one put them together
like that, and few play so well, and not in such unison.
    My eyes watered.
    â€œIt’s dangerous to experience this,” Elanstan said dryly, seating herself in the chair to my right. “We might actually want to return to the high-tech days of the ancients.”
    I’d forgotten she was there, but shields don’t glitter and shimmer, only protect.
    â€œThe sustenance doesn’t measure up to the setting,” Rhetoral added, setting two loaves of bread, a large wedge of cheese, and a bowl of mixed dried fruit in the center of the table. He turned back toward the dark wood counter on one side of the room, returning with three crystalline goblets and a pitcher of water and sitting on my left.
    â€œImpressive, isn’t it?” he asked after he sat down.
    â€œI think dangerous is more appropriate,” I said after I cleared my throat. “Luxuries are always dangerous.”
    The two exchanged glances.
    â€œEcktor, these weren’t particularly luxurious. Millions of people could hear that kind of music or purchase furnishings like these,” said Elanstan.
    It was my turn to feel patronizing, but I tried not to sound that way. “I meant societal luxuries. What is the total resource bill if everyone, or even millions of people out of billions, can purchase hundreds of small luxuries?”
    â€œEcktor … this music was laser-printed on a plastic disc ten centimeters across. That’s scarcely a huge resource bill.”
    I thought for a minute, but I had to access the net for the calculations, and I could see them both frowning as the silence drew out. “Let’s say … one disc per year for every person on the globe. Before the collapse, there were eight billion people. If we assume that one of those discs weighs 25 grams, one disc per person per year requires two hundred thousand tonnes of plastic. That’s a million tonnes of plastic every five years—just for a little music.” I lifted the
synthetic cloth. “How about one of these every two years for a family group—nearly one billion family groups getting a half kilogram of synthetic fabric annually …”
    â€œEcktor, it wasn’t the luxuries that led to the chaos years and the collapse and flight,” pointed out Elanstan. “It was necessities. Taking your own math—if you give everyone just one set of clothes a year, they would have needed to produce more than four million tonnes of fabric annually.”
    â€œBut they didn’t do it that way,” I had to counter. “In NorAm, most people had ten to twenty sets of clothes, and with five percent of the world’s