"Karen Traviss - Nanny Estate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Traviss Karen)

Nanny Estate

By Karen Traviss



"I can grow you a housing estate," said the architect.
"Grow?" asked the Director of Planning. "Is that the the latest buzz-word?"
"I do mean grow, Mrs. James," he repeated. "Just take a look at this."
He placed the plans on her neatly-arranged desk and swivelled them so she
could read them the right way up. But there were no straight lines and
elevations for her to recognise: the images were all snap-together
molecular
models, like simple construction toys. He watched for a flicker of interest
on
her face.
"It's a smart house," he prompted. "And I mean smart. Not just automated.
More
like autonomic."
"We don't need more houses," she said. "And we haven't got any green-field
sites to build on. What we could do with is someone prepared to refurbish
some
of the run-down housing stock we're stuck with. Not as profitable, maybe,
but
that's what we need."
It was a cue from heaven. "I know," he said." That's why I'm here.
Regenerating brown-field sites and contaminated landтАФit's my special
interest."
He laid an old-fashioned business card on the desk: Hedley Barton,
Consulting
Nano-architect, Sustainable Technologies, Novel Constructs. "Just suppose
that
I could rebuild your most run-down area, fill it with
environmentally-neutral
housing, and remove the soil contaminants at the same time."
"Is this before or after you transmute base metal into gold?" She was
studying
the card. "You're not a qualified architect. Not according to this, anyway."
"I'm a scientist who can build things."
"So why should we take a risk on you?"
"Your old defence establishment land is riddled with heavy metals and
asbestos
and you canтАЩt sell it. How long has it been sitting derelict? Twenty years?"
Barton knew it was the sort of site you couldn't give away free with
breakfast
cereal. He also knew the prospect of releasing capital for the city coffers
was a temptation on a Faustian scale. Like most city councils, this one had
sold off the civic silver and was close to auctioning sports fields to make
ends meet.
"So how do you intend to do this?" she asked.