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eBook Category: Science Fiction World's Best SF Selection
eBook Description: Scientists experimenting in futurology rebuild the ancient city of Babylon in the Arizona Dessert.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Habitats, ed. Susan Shwartz, 1984
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2001

43 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [112 KB], eReader (PDB) [40 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [27 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [25 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [45 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [99 KB], hiebook (KML) [87 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [57 KB], iSilo (PDB) [22 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [28 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [56 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [42 KB]
Words: 7673
Reading time: 21-30 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

We cross the Arizona desert awakening from a daze, our minds buzzing with koiné, the common tongue, the universal language, Greek.

Our brains still froth and simmer from all the speed-teaching: with receptivity drugs, hypnosis, computer interface, recorded voices squeaking at high speed like whistling dolphins. By the time we arrive at Babylon, they have told us, our heads will have cleared. A deep sediment of Greek words, phrases, syntax will have settled to the bottom of our minds; our ordinary consciousness will be lucid, clear and Attic. And so we will try to come to terms with the future which is written in the past.

A few saguaro cacti flash by: probably the last native American vegetation we shall see. Ahead, the desert is stripped bare, a buffer zone between America and Babylon.

We cross this denuded desert in a hovercraft, following the concrete ribbon of the road which once gave access to the construction site. No wheeled vehicles are allowed to use it now. It is closed; no longer a modern highway. We fly a few inches above it, the gale of air supporting us beneath and the wind from our tail fans sweeping it clear of sand. Yet we do not touch it. We are disconnected; disconnected, too, from the America we have left behind. The voices babbling in our brains disorient us, too; but already as promised they are becoming quieter, dropping beneath the horizon of our awareness.

"Alex--" Deborah is saying something to me in ancient Greek--Greek with an enriched vocabulary. I nod, but pay little attention. Nothing we can say at the moment means anything. We are still in transition.