Firstborn(Time Odyssey 3) - By Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,6

was a carpet of blocky new buildings that looked like tank traps.

And as the plane dipped further she saw the Dome itself. The paneling had long been dismantled, but some of the great ribs and pillars had been allowed to stand; weather-streaked and tarnished they cast shadows kilometers long over the city the Dome had preserved. It was only a glimpse. And in a way it was mundane; twenty-seven years on, you still saw the scars of the sunstorm wherever you traveled, all over the world.

The city fled beneath her, and the plane swept down over anonymous, hunkered suburbs toward its landing at Heathrow.
PART 2 JOURNEYS 6: MYRA
Myra sat with Bisesa before the bubble window, sipping iced tea. It was early in the morning, and the low light seemed to catch the wrinkles in Myras face.

Youre staring, Myra said. Im sorry, love. Can you blame me? For me, youve aged nineteen years in a week. At least Im still younger than you. Myra sounded resentful; she had a right to be.

Myra was wearing a comfortable-looking blouse and pants of some smart material that looked as if it kept her cool. Her hair was swept back from her face, a style that was a bit severe to Bisesas out-of-date eyes, but which suited Myras bones, her fine forehead. She had no ring on her finger. Her movements were small, contained, almost formal, and she rarely looked at her mother.

She didnt look happy. She looked restless. Bisesa didnt know what was wrong. I should have been here for you, she said. Myra looked up. Well, you werent. Right now, I dont even know

You know I married Eugene, not long before you went into the tank. Eugene Mangles, whiz-kid scientist, all but autistic, and after his heroic computations during the sunstorm the nearest thing to a savior the world had recently seen. Everybody was marrying young in those days, Myra said. The

post-sunstorm years had been a time of a rapid population boom. We broke up after five years. Well, Im sorry. Has there been nobody else? Not serious. So where are you working now?

I went back to London, oh, ten years ago. Im back in our old flat in Chelsea.

Under the skeleton of the Dome.

Whats left of it. That old ruin is good for property prices, you know. Snob value, to be under the Dome. I guess were rich, Mum. Whenever Im short of money I just release a bit more equity; the prices are climbing so fast it soon gets wiped out.

So youre back in the city. Doing what?

I retrained as a social worker. I deal in PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress.

Mostly its your generation, Mum. Theyll carry the stress with them to their graves.

But they saved the world, Bisesa said softly.

They did that.

I never saw you as a social worker. You always wanted to be an astronaut!

Myra scowled, as if she was being reminded of some indiscretion. I grew out of that when I found out what was really going on.

Apparently unconsciously, she touched the tattoo on her cheek. It was in fact an ident tattoo, a compulsory registration introduced a few years after Bisesa went into the tank. Not a symptom of a notably free society.

Wasnt Eugene working on weather modification systems?

Yes, he was. But he pretty quickly got sidelined into weaponization. Weather modification as an instrument of political control. Its never been used, but its there. We had long arguments about the morality of what he was doing. I never lost the argument, but I never won, either. Eugene just didnt get it.

Bisesa sighed. I remember that about him.

In the end his work was more important than I was.

Bisesa was profoundly sorry to see this disappointment in a daughter who, from her point of view, had been a bright twenty-one-year-old only weeks ago.

She looked out of her window. Something was moving on the far side of the canyon. Camels, this time. Not everything about this new world seems so bad to me, she said, trying to lighten the mood. I quite like the idea of camels and elephants wandering around North Americathough Im not quite sure why theyre here.

Were in the middle of a Jefferson, Myra said.

Named for Jefferson the president?

I learned a lot more about the American presidents when I lived with Eugenes family in Massachusetts, Myra said dryly. The purposeful re-wilding of the world was an impulse that had come out of the aftermath of the sunstorm. In fact Linda had something to do with devising the global program. She