The vast globe of transparent plastic, infinitely stronger than the most powerful columbium steel, hung suspended in space, ablaze in brilliant pyrotechnics of light. And as cold and impersonal as the laws of the empire it ruled. Within it was the City of the Inner Circle. Patterned after the City of Plastica itself, it rose within the globe in graduated tiers, but unlike Plastica, there were no graduations of caste—they were all Protectors, these scientists of the Inner Circle, and above them r