pledging a return to original constitutional principles, which they symbolized by adopting the name New America; the Southern states yielded to a decisive black majority swollen by migrants escaping the turmoils of other parts, to become Martina; while the eastern rump, in a way that was not without its touch of irony, emerged as a parody of what was almost a reversion to the original thirteen colonies, proclaiming its adherence to the grander vision nevertheless with the amended title of Federated American States. Completing the picture, Texas preserved a balancing act between east, west, north-center, and south by reinvoking its status as a onetime republic; Hawaii went along with the Western Federacy and Alaska elevated its governor to president and declared nationhood, but maintained a close affiliation.
So the children of the new privileged West Coast dynasties were no longer graced by attending such hallowed academies as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Stanford still kept its prestige, of course, and by the reckoning of many headed the list of western higher learning institutions by virtue of its tradition. Gates University, in a glorious setting amid the Cascades, was a close runner, noted for the munificence of its donors, as by a slightly wider margin were Corbel, not too far north at Bellingham, and Farrell at Santa Cruz. The last two were formerly existing campuses that had been acquired, expanded, and aggrandized to immortalize names that had swept to super-wealth and fame in the extraterrestrial development boom. A titanium Heim heat shield surmounting polished marble on the entrance lawn had replaced ivied walls as the symbol of tribal roots and social cohesion for the highborn.
***
One of the founders of Interworld Restructuring was a former Air Force pilot turned business speculator by the name of Conrad Metterlin. Having adjusted to the life of palatial residences in Carmel, St. Moritz, and Brisbane, custom-built Lamborghini, and a personalized Gulfstream that he used as a flying conference room or party suite depending on the occasion, he turned his attention to the business of raising his position on the social hierarchy by outdoing rivals in ostentatious display — a compulsion also coded in the genes that color the tail feathers of peacocks and the hindquarters of mandrills. Among prominent humans, this frequently expresses itself as the making of spectacular donations to worthy and highly visible causes. In Metterlin’s case, it took the form of a half-billion-(revalued)-dollar grant to include a Metterlin School of Aviation in Occidena’s new National College of Space Sciences and Engineering at Sunnyvale. This in turn was a lavish affair intended as a monument to symbolize the groundings of the new nation’s wealth and political prestige, and took the form of grandiose exhibition of surreal space-age architecture and experimental facilities dedicated to the new physics, close to the airport and aviation complex located further north along the peninsula, the military space center on the former NASA site at Ames, and the launch installations east of San Jose at Alum Rock.
The Aviation School’s Grand Opening Day was blessed by a flawless sky of sunshine and clear blue. Chefs from San Francisco’s noted houses of haute cuisine dispensed salmon tartare with marinated cucumber, and paté de foie gras accompanied by oceans of champagne in a marquee set up to serve the lawn party beneath the name metterlin carved in granite above the main entrance, while couples in Adrian Jules suits and Gregg Ruth diamonds gyrated on a polished hardwood floor to amplified swing from a blue-blazered dance band. The orchids setting the tone of the floral backdrop had been flown in from Venezuela, and the winsome, yellow-furred primates somewhat suggestive of lemurs, known as kerries — the zoologist who discovered them had been Irish — being led around on gold chains by attendants and frolicking to the delight of
So the children of the new privileged West Coast dynasties were no longer graced by attending such hallowed academies as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Stanford still kept its prestige, of course, and by the reckoning of many headed the list of western higher learning institutions by virtue of its tradition. Gates University, in a glorious setting amid the Cascades, was a close runner, noted for the munificence of its donors, as by a slightly wider margin were Corbel, not too far north at Bellingham, and Farrell at Santa Cruz. The last two were formerly existing campuses that had been acquired, expanded, and aggrandized to immortalize names that had swept to super-wealth and fame in the extraterrestrial development boom. A titanium Heim heat shield surmounting polished marble on the entrance lawn had replaced ivied walls as the symbol of tribal roots and social cohesion for the highborn.
***
One of the founders of Interworld Restructuring was a former Air Force pilot turned business speculator by the name of Conrad Metterlin. Having adjusted to the life of palatial residences in Carmel, St. Moritz, and Brisbane, custom-built Lamborghini, and a personalized Gulfstream that he used as a flying conference room or party suite depending on the occasion, he turned his attention to the business of raising his position on the social hierarchy by outdoing rivals in ostentatious display — a compulsion also coded in the genes that color the tail feathers of peacocks and the hindquarters of mandrills. Among prominent humans, this frequently expresses itself as the making of spectacular donations to worthy and highly visible causes. In Metterlin’s case, it took the form of a half-billion-(revalued)-dollar grant to include a Metterlin School of Aviation in Occidena’s new National College of Space Sciences and Engineering at Sunnyvale. This in turn was a lavish affair intended as a monument to symbolize the groundings of the new nation’s wealth and political prestige, and took the form of grandiose exhibition of surreal space-age architecture and experimental facilities dedicated to the new physics, close to the airport and aviation complex located further north along the peninsula, the military space center on the former NASA site at Ames, and the launch installations east of San Jose at Alum Rock.
The Aviation School’s Grand Opening Day was blessed by a flawless sky of sunshine and clear blue. Chefs from San Francisco’s noted houses of haute cuisine dispensed salmon tartare with marinated cucumber, and paté de foie gras accompanied by oceans of champagne in a marquee set up to serve the lawn party beneath the name metterlin carved in granite above the main entrance, while couples in Adrian Jules suits and Gregg Ruth diamonds gyrated on a polished hardwood floor to amplified swing from a blue-blazered dance band. The orchids setting the tone of the floral backdrop had been flown in from Venezuela, and the winsome, yellow-furred primates somewhat suggestive of lemurs, known as kerries — the zoologist who discovered them had been Irish — being led around on gold chains by attendants and frolicking to the delight of
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