Dark Omega

CHAPTER 55 - WELCOME TO OUR CIRCUS

Amalfi. Like so many other planets, it had probably been named after some obscure part of Old Earth. Or a then-famous person. Or the pet of the ark-ship's captain. Or something crazy the colonists dreamed up after they arrived.

It was a gloomy world of ancient arcologies and overcrowded sprawls, lying some two hundred light-years, almost directly rimward, of the Seventh Circle's capital of Salerno, and a hundred lightyears coreward and anti-spinward of Akakios. Despite its remote location, it was by far the most densely populated of the region's worlds, with an official population figure approaching the three-hundred-billion mark, more than twice that of any other planet in that part of the galaxy.

Amalfi resembled one of the core worlds ringing Earth more than it did a colony on the edge of the galaxy. The algorithms of population growth made it inevitable: Amalfi had been colonized during the First Flowering. The other worlds in the same area had been populated five centuries later, if not more.

Amalfi's rulers believed their world should be the capital. Given its great age, majestic architecture, effete noble caste, vast population, and massive manufacturing capability, Amalfi's claim to eminence seemed reasonable enough at first glance. Indeed, it had been the capital, but only fleetingly. The great Mikael, First Autarch of the Dominion, had selected the planet as an administrative seat in his new empire. The man appointed to oversee the region—Björn the Even, one of the Autarch's many friends and political allies—had arrived, looked around, and immediately decided it wouldn't work.

The fall of the Dominion made it worse. Despite vehement protests from Amalfi, the Archon of the nascent Coalition decreed that Salerno was the capital of one of his grand duchies, the Seventh Astro-administrative Circle. To make the lords of Amalfi shut up, or so the saying went, the Archon had named the ruler a Marquesa and given her control over the vast, but underpopulated, frontier. Thus was born the Amalfian star sector, one of the primary subdivisions of the Seventh Circle. Akakios was nominally under Amalfian rule, but never formally recognized the Coalition's authority, and remained effectively an independent system.

The greatest city on Amalfi—indeed, one of the largest cities in the known universe—was Absalom, named after the ark-ship that settled the planet at the dawn of human colonization. The central pillar of Absalom rose nearly sixty kilometers into the air, all the way up beyond the stratosphere. Not a true beanstalk, like the one that connected the Tyrrhenian arcology on Salerno to space, but a hugely oversized city spire. It was said that human hands didn't build the structure at all, that the colonists arrive to find it already there, a gravity-defying edifice of crystal, created by the Revenants. Around the spire, an acology grew, looking every bit like a human ant-hill. By the time the Dominion rediscovered Alamfi, any trace of the alien structure—if there ever was one—had been buried under layer upon layer of habitation.

When Amalfi was incorporated into the Dominion, pollution had long since made the air unbreathable. The Technocracy erected sixteen massive atmospheric processors in two concentric rings around Absalom. A thousand years later, the air was cleaner than it had ever been, and the processors were no longer needed. A great project was undertaken to take advantage of the nearly limitless geothermal energy still being generated by the processors. Sixteen lesser arcologies were built, one on top of each processor.

Fast forward five centuries and the atmosphere of Amalfi had again been reduced to a poisonous miasma. The processors were no longer operational. Even if they had been, there were billions of people living inside them. Another solution was needed, so a vast array of gravity-insulated macro-cables was strung between secondary spires until it looked like a multi-layered spider's web. The network of cables was covered with lightweight, yet resilient panes, shutting out the foul air and letting in the light.