It was mid-afternoon and the huge haze of dust kicked up by Casa-Blanca’s treads was settling as it paused in its trek across the Sahara to digest the small nomadic settlement it had been chasing for several days. Above the blunt, white-washed roofs of the Blanca over-city, streaked grey by the smoke that poured from the engine’s exhausts, rising out of the city’s underbelly Casa district, hovered Airhaven.
Buoyed by its many hydrogen envelopes, their once-vibrant colours now bleached by the harsh Afrikan sun, Airhaven, frequented by aviators, travellers, salesmen and criminals, had been following the larger traction city for a week. Little red air balloons shuttled tourists to and from the famous flying town and aviators did good business taking on passengers and goods.
Although not far from the airship docks, business in the Ahmar Café was slow. Perhaps the heat was keeping people away or perhaps the aviators who generally formed a large proportion of the clientele were too busy doing other things. Either way, the dim, quiet space beneath the draped red awnings at the front of the café was almost empty. In the corner, a waitress swept up the red Saharan dust that had collected overnight and, at a table by the entrance, an elderly man slumped in his chair, dozing.
On the table in front of him sat an open book and a pair of half-moon spectacles. The faint breeze that came off the slipstreams above Airhaven rifled through the pages.
’…between the American Empire and Greater China, the Sixty Minute War was the most destructive conflict mankind has ever known.
The exact date of its occurrence is unknown; such was the totality of its devastation that in the Black Centuries which followed (discussed in Chapter 6- Chaos in the Black Centuries) almost all knowledge and record of human history up until that point was lost. What is known that the weaponry used was almost incomprehensibly advanced in comparison to our present understanding of science and technology.
North America, now colloquially known as the Dead Continent, was severed from Neuvo Maya by the strategic obliteration by Slow Bombs of the isthmus linking the two continents. It remains a radioactive wasteland and what little is known or, indeed, surmised about its history, is the result of the dangerous retrieval of Old Tech artefacts from the coast by a few intrepid historians.
The furthest reaches of northern Greater China, now the border to the Great Hunting Ground were also severely irradiated and the Hunting Ground itself was thrown into a period of cataclysmic geological upheaval, resulting in the emptying of the Med Sea and the volcanic destruction of the Middlest (the English name for what is now called Persia in Anglish, presumably so-called for its position in the middle of Afrika and the Great Hunting Ground). The Himalayas were forced upwards, causing the creation of Shan Guo, the only pass…’
The wind died down a little and there was a tapping as the waitress emptied the sand from her dustpan into the rubbish bin behind the bar. The man at the table shifted but didn’t wake up.
‘…probably some time in the 25th Century. The first static settlement to be converted into a mobile, traction city was London, by Nicholas Quirke, the first proponent of Munciple Darwinism, in order to cope with increasingly scarce resources. Many other cities followed suit, including the armoured Panzerstadts and the Neuvo Mayan Ziggurat traction cities as well as many other smaller towns and scavenger suburbs. It was, as it is today, eat, run or be eaten.
However, small pockets of Anti-Tractionist static settlements did, and still do, remain, primarily in the Neuvo Mayan Andes, southern Afrika and, of course, south and east of the Great Hunting Ground, protected by the Himalayas and their geological offspring (see Chapter 14- Batmunhk Gompa and the Shield Wall of Shan Guo).
The necessity of transport and communication between mobile cities spurred on the development of airships and balloons capable of travelling distances of thousands of miles. However, the invention of the heavier-than-air airships seen in Old Tech times has so far eluded…’
With a snort, the man woke up and rubbed his drooping eyelids blearily.
“Another Eirish coffee please,” he said, to the waitress who was now leaning against the bar, fanning herself lazily with the menu. “Picked up a taste for them when I was on Dublin.”
As she set about making the drink, the breeze came in and swept over the pages once again.
“Pesky wind,” he muttered, taking off his spectacles and placing them on top, to weigh the pages down.
’…relics of Old Tech to rise in price over recent years in response to demand for their use in scientific study, as museum pieces, even as fashionable ornamentation (see Chapter 21- The Impact of Old Tech on Modern Culture).
Importantly, they have also be used to help to alleviate the growing problem of dwindling prey and other ground-level resources (trees for biofuel, for example) by helping scientists in the leading centres of research to devise new ways to increase fuel efficiency and recycle waste. There have been suggestions that Old Tech could be employed for far more sinister, destructive purposes but, to date, the only relics of the Sixty Minute War have been broken beyond repair or incomplete beyond reconstruction and modern science not nearly enough advanced to comprehend their workings…’
“Your coffee, Mr Quillan,” said the waitress, putting the saucer down on the table.
“Nonsense, my dear, call me Jarvis.” He took a sip of the coffee and grimaced appreciatively. “Lovely. Now, where could I find an aviator to take me on as a passenger? I’ve got an appointment to keep in London, which I gather is chasing a suburb east along the edge of the Med Sea Bed, so I suppose I should get a move on whilst its still close. I really can’t stand overly long airship journey. I get rather nauseous, you see?”
“Go to the docks and ask around, Mr Quillan, you’ll soon find one. I’d tell you to ask some of the patrons but we don’t seem to be very busy today…”
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