Book 5: Chapter 26: Building Dragons
Howard
August 2342
Trantor
On the screen, a skeleton floated in an assembly pod, secured by tensor fields, while more fields carefully added layers of artificial muscle, tendon, nerves, and circulatory system. It was a finicky process, and one that couldn’t yet be simply printed from the bottom up in the manner of the very first printers. Components had to be constructed, then assembled to produce the end result.
“It looks more like a bat right now,” I commented.
Bridget ignored me, closely scrutinizing her notes. “This one should be good enough to pass inspection by a real dragon when it’s complete.” She put down her martini and pulled up a video window. A small drone, disguised as a local bird, was providing a feed from the surface of Jabberwocky and the village that we’d picked for observation.
“Got a name yet?”
“Nah, still calling them dragons.” She sat back. “I’ve been observing several villages. Interesting thing. There doesn’t seem to be a general name for the inhabitants. They all identify themselves by their village.”
“Huh. So like, no word for human, but you’re a Bostonian or Seattleite or Angeleno?”