New Adventure written by Simon Bucher-Jones © 1997
In the evening, when the sky was the colour of burnt umber, the factories
crawled down the continental shelf to drink.
The Spire is an inhuman artefact, a construction almost three hundred miles
high. But it is more than just a big dumb object. Those close to it can look
into the future - a future which is going to be arriving sooner than they
think, and which is as bad as can be.
In the here and now, Professor Bernice Summerfield, doyenne of twenty-sixth
century archaeology and seedy space-port bars, is used to seeing strange things
in her rooms. So it takes the unexpected arrival of an angel to get her away
from increasingly desperate professional deadlines and off to investigate one
of the seven hundred and seventy-six wonders of the galaxy.
However, Benny is not the only one interested in the Spire. A mysterious
race of weaponsmiths, a mutogenic assassin and a sect of fanatically
anti-religious reptiles all have their reasons for learning - or concealing -
the structure's secrets. And, as she struggles to unlock this ancient mystery,
it soon becomes clear that the life of an eccentric professor is of very little
consequence indeed.
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