《The Ninth Of Av》作者： - Dan Simmons【EPUB】

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THE NINTH OF AV THIRTY days before the final fax, the posthumans threw a going-away party in the New York City Archipelago. Many of the 9,114 old-styles attended. The majority simply faxed in, but some arrived via glowing, transparent bio-zeppelins that tied up at the Empire State Building’s mooring tower, some came by oversized squidsubs, an unimaginative five hundred-some arrived on the refittedQE2, and a handful flew or floated in via personally fitted sonies. Pinchas and Petra faxed in on the second evening of the five-day fete. They had hoped that Savi would be there but no proxnet beacon blinked and a physical search of the archipelago proved fruitless. She remained absent and invisible. Pinchas and Petra were disappointed, but they spent a few hours at the party anyway. The archipelago was ablaze with light. Besides the glowing Empire State Building and other lighted historical towers rising out of the dark waters, clusters of candleglobes floated among the swamp conifers and above the fern forest canals, festive bulbs burned in and above theQE2 where it was moored to the Chrylser Building, the luminescent, jellyfish glow of the zeppelins above and submersibles below lighted the scene, and skyrockets exploded in an almost constant barrage of color and noise. Far above the fireworks, both the e-ring and p-ring shifted through every color in the spectrum—and some beyond the human reach of vision—in honor of the first of a thousand pre-final-fax bashes. “Quite a wake,” said Pinchas. Petra squeezed his upper arm. “Stop that. You promised.” Pinchas nodded and cadged a cold drink from a passing servitor. He and Petra