"Why the Eight-Bar Band? Thank the
military. Against all odds, they managed to build automated bombers
that still fly, roaring overhead every minute or so, bomb-bay
doors open, dry firing on our little band of survivors. The War
had been over for ten years, but still, they flew. "
"I played the constellation game
for the first time when I was 17-- patched together my first
drysuit out of old inner tubes, insulated it with hand-me-down
sweaters and sealed the seams with wax from the stub ends of
a dozen candles. Soon as I waded out, of course, the seals leaked.
So I got wet; I got cold. Darkness seemed forever in coming."
"'Or salting the map. Same thing.
You see, Casey...' Goud already began to enter into his
already familiar Corporate Lecture Mode. 'Originpoint is
the leader in vintage cartography. Our atlases are second to
none in historical accuracy, geophysical skill, and artistic
elegance.' Nearly verbatim from the company propaganda,
Casey realized. 'Therefore, we have to make sure that our
competitors don't steal our ideas, particularly through our indexes.
It's been known to happen before that fly-by-night competitors
scan a few uncopyrighted maps from Victorian travelogues and
photocopy our indexes, only recoding the coordinates. And then
they sell the product to WalMart.'"
