“Just sell one at cost to get some short term cash and I’ll find a new investor.”
“Daphne, you need to face reality. Ourcology will be insolvent in thirty days. The model is dead.”
Daphne Maladine stared down at the earth as it spiraled slowly against the black. Was the station spun up too fast? She felt a phantom heaviness upon her heart. She’d been feeling it more and more frequently. Perhaps it was just her age catching up with her determination. She hadn’t even been back on Earth’s surface in—how long now?
“Daphne?”
She shook her head and turned to face her senior advisor, Kehlani. Kehlani’s big brain kept Daphne’s dreams grounded. Like an anchor. All that logic didn’t leave any room for vision—
“Daphne!” She clapped her hands in Daphne’s face. “No one is going to the stars anymore! The backlog of unsold arcologies are in violation of orbital dereliction laws and we can’t afford the fines any longer. They’re going to begin dismantling them for burn-up and we need to talk about—”
Daphne held up a hand. “No one is going to the stars?” Her voice was pleading.
“No one is looking up while the planet below them is collapsing. Even if they did look up, you can’t even see the stars through the haze anymore.”
Daphne cocked her head. “Earth is dying?”
Kehlani’s face twisted in an unbelieving expression that could have passed for cubism. “My God, Daphne, yes!”
“Deorbit the arcs, then. They’re built for harsher environments than this. We’ll sell them domestically.” She turned back to the window and watched the brown earth spin below her for hours and hours and hours.
Warmup Pages 