After half an hour’s walking, Birk reached his destination. Near the center of the Black City was an open, diamond-shaped plaza that stretched ten city blocks on a side. Part of the plaza was landscaped with trees and flowering bushes pruned to absolute symmetry by the tireless robots. Shaded lanes wandered through the lovely garden, some paved, others pebbled or “natural.” Closer to the center of the plaza, the landscaping ended and the ground was completely paved over, becoming a garden of art and sculpture instead of greenery. Elaborate fountains sprayed water in geometric patterns while figures of black marble brooded in their niches.
But it was the structure at the very center of the plaza that attracted Birk’s attention, as it was designed to do. It rose out of the ground like a vol
