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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Paradise City had come of age in its own right. Complexity born of complexity had given it a mind of its own, which could be served well enough by the androids who had been created to relieve the inhabitants of the boring routines of admin. Now the time was ripe for the human element to be phased out as being no longer able to contribute anything of importance. Joe Dill, in spite of a clear veto, had gotten himself a technical education and saw further into the long term aims of the tin brain than anyone else. But getting the message across to the man or woman in the market place, with the very fabric of the city working against him, was a very dubious operation indeed.

eBook Publisher: Golden Apple, Wallasey, Published: USA, 1970
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2004

6 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [207 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [290 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [164 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [660 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [186 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [346 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [214 KB] , hiebook (KML) [534 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [332 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [153 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [189 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [269 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [247 KB]
Words: 55947
Reading time: 159-223 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Nobody could point a finger at the C.R.B. and claim that its top brass lolled about in luxury while the citizens it should find homes for were still crowding the street.

Joe Dill, administrator of the Citizens' Resettlement Bureau, had three rooms on penthouse level in block sixteen of the waterfront development. A main office--five metres by eight--largely filled by an obsolescent computer, that kept tabs on the five million living allotments in the city. Assistant's office--a four-by-six cubicle--where Barbara Rowe and a record clerk handled welfare issues of supplementary ration vouchers. A three-by-two storeroom--which did not appear on the schedule, having been mistaken for a closet in a long-past survey.

This last he had fixed, at great cost in blood, sweat and simple fear, as a workshop. With a narrow bunk bed high on the facing wall, it also served as occasional home and hearth for the accommodation executive himself.

From the window of the main office, Dill saw right across the river to the town that hung like a conical beehive on the headland. Too pushed, most days, to look at it, he was seeing it now with a fresh eye.

It had good proportion. In its heyday, it would have been impressive. There was a nice choice of coloured surfaces--standing oblongs of ultramarine, horizontal blocks of pale primrose, flashings of vermilion insets. Even now its glass glittered and sparkled in the brittle April sun. Magic casements; opening on a perilous sea, at that. It was an estuary of tricky tides, and the channels were littered with every kind of wreck.

Even so, there was a small flotilla on the way over. Strung out like black beads behind an old steam-power boat that some mechanical genius had resurrected.

More trouble on the way. Every last one would end up--at his office asking for living room. He could not refuse. Not that he would want to turn anybody out to sleep in the street. There was still room enough.

Eskimo Nell, the aged computer, would fix it. Feed in age, sex and psychosomatic detail from the profile card, and she would deliver an address slip where the applicant would find an empty bed. Somewhere to go. Even if it meant that the rest of the family were in other parts of the city. Even if it was a simple mattress in the corner of an already over-crowded room. It was, anyway, of less importance than the apartment registration number--which put the holder on the list for entry to the dining centres and the daily fantasy sessions in the 3-D projection stadia. So many holes, so many pegs. So much bread, so many circuses. Simple administrator's logic.

Nowadays, though, there were more and more cases where records were not accurate. Profile cards lost. Replaced by crude, blatant forgeries, proffered anxiously. Worried eyes in tired, strained faces.