Schismatrix plus (22 page)

"Margaret has a new opinion on your centerpiece," said Charles Vetterling. The former Regent had gone frankly to seed since his loss of office; he looked tubby and choleric, his old-fashioned trimmed hair speckled with white.

Lindsay was interested. "What's that, Madam Chancellor?"

"It's erotica." Chancellor-General Margaret Juliano leaned over the inlaid table and pointed into the perspex pressure-dome. Beneath the dome was a complex sculpture. Speculation had been rife ever since the Investors had first given it to Lindsay.

The gift was carved out of water ice and plated in glimmering frozen ammonia. Machinery beneath the dome maintained it at 40 degrees Kelvin. The sculpture consisted of two oblate lumps covered in filigree spires of delicate crystalline frost. The tableau was set on a rippled surface, possibly meant to represent some unimaginably cold sludge-ocean. Off to one side, poking through the surface, was a smaller hinged lump that might have been an elbow.

"You'll notice there are two of them," the Shaper academic said. "I believe that the physical goings-on are tastefully concealed beneath the water. The fluid, rather."

"They don't look much alike," Lindsay said. "It seems more likely that one is eating the other. If they're alive at all."

"That's what I said," rasped Sigmund Fetzko. The Mechanist renegade, by far the oldest of the six of them, lay back in his chair in exhaustion. Words came to him with difficulty, propelled by flexing rib-braces beneath his heavy coat. "The second one has dimples. Shell collapsing. Juice sucked out of it." A Vetterling child came into the room, chasing a runaway gyroscope. Vet-terling Looked at Neville Pongpianskul, changing the subject. The child left. "It is a good marriage," Pongpianskul replied. "Mavrides grace with Vetterling determination: a formidable match. Mikhaila Vetterling shows promise, I think; what was her split?"

Vetterling was smug. "Sixty Vetterling, thirty Mavrides, and ten percent Garza on a general reciprocity deal. But I saw to it that the Garza genes were close to early-line Vetterling. None of that new-line Garza tampering. Not till there's proof behind it."

"Young Adelaide Garza is brilliant," said Margaret Juliano. "One of my advanced students. The Superbrights are astounding, Regent. A quantum leap." She smoothed the lapel of her medal-studded overvest with graceful, wrinkled hands.

"Really?" said Ross. "I was married to the older Adelaide once."

"What happened to Adelaide?" said Pongpianskul.

Ross shrugged. "Faded."

A faint chill crossed the room. Lindsay changed the subject. "We're planning a new veranda. Nora needs this one for her office."

"She needs a bigger place?" said Pongpianskul.

Lindsay nodded. "Tenure. And this is our best discreet. Wakefield Zaibatsu did the debugging. Otherwise we have to have the debuggers in again; it'll turn the place upside down."

"Building on credit?" Ross said.

"Of course." Lindsay smiled.

"Too flaming much loose credit in G-T these days," Ross said. "I don't hold with it."

"Ah, Ross," Vetterling said, "you haven't changed those digs of yours in eighty years. A man can't turn sideways in those core ratholes. Take us Vetter-lings, now. The bridegroom just delivered us the specs for a new complex of in-flatables."

"Jerry-built crap," Ross opined. "G-T's too crowded these days anyway. Too many young sharks. Things smell good now but there's crash in the air, I can feel it. When it comes, I'll pull up stakes and head for the cometaries. Been too long since I last tested my luck."

Pongpianskul Looked at Lindsay, communicating in the set of his wrinkled eyelids his amused contempt for Ross's incessant luck-bragging. Ross had made his big mining strike a century ago and had never let anyone forget it. Though he incessantly goaded others on, Ross's own risk-taking was confined almost entirely to his odd choice of waistcoats.

"I have a Clique candidate," Vetterling said. "Very polite, very well-spoken. Carl Zeuner."

"The playwright?" said Margaret Juliano. "I don't care for his work."

"You mean he's not a Detentiste," Vetterling said. "He doesn't fit your pacifism, Margaret. Mavrides, I believe you know the man."

"We've met," Lindsay said.

"Zeuner's a fascist," said Pongpianskul. The topic galvanized the elderly doctor; he leaned forward intently, knotting his hands. "He's Philip Constan-tine's man. He spent years in the Republic. A playground for Shaper imperialists."

Vetterling frowned. "Calm yourself, Neville. I know the Concatenation; I was born there. Constantine's work there should have been done a hundred years ago."

"You mean fill his garden world with broken-down assassins?"

"To bring a new world into the Shaper community—"

"Nothing but cultural genocide." Pongpianskul had just been rejuvenated; his lean body quivered with unnatural energy. Lindsay had never asked what technique he used; it left his skin smooth but leathery, and of a peculiar dusky color not found in nature. His knuckles were so heavily wrinkled that they looked like small rosettes. "The Circumlunar Republic should be left as a cultural museum. It's good policy. We need variety; not every society we form can hold together."

"Neville." Sigmund Fetzko spoke heavily. "You are talking as if you were a boy."

Pongpianskul leaned back. "I confess I've been reading my old speeches since my last rejuve."

"That's what got you purged," Vetterling said.

"My taste for antiquities? My own speeches are antiques by now. But the issues are still with us, friends. Community and anarchy. Politics pulls things together; technology blows them apart. Little enclaves like the Republic should be preserved intact. So that if our own tampering strikes us down, there'll be someone left to pick up the pieces."

"There's the Earth," said Fetzko.

"I draw the line at barbarians," Pongpianskul said. He sipped his drink, a tranquilizer frappe.

"If you had any guts, Pongpianskul," Ross said, "you'd go to the Republic and tackle things firsthand."

Pongpianskul sniffed. "I'll wager I could gather damning evidence there."

"Nonsense," said Vetterling.

"A wager?" Ross looked from one to the other. "Let me be arbiter, then. Doctor, if you could find evidence that would offend my hardened sensibilities, we would all agree that right is on your side." Pongpianskul hesitated. "It's been so long since I..." Ross laughed. "Afraid? Better hang back and cultivate your mystique, then. You need a facade of mystery. Otherwise the young sharks will have you for breakfast."

"There were breakfasters after the purge," Pongpianskul said. "They couldn't digest me."

"That was two centuries back," Ross taunted. "I recall a certain episode— what was it—immortality from kelp?"

"What?" Pongpianskul blinked. Then the memory seemed to ooze up within him, buried under decades. "Kelp," he said. " 'The earth-ocean wonder plant.'

" He was quoting himself. " 'You wonder, friends, why your catalytic balances vary.... The answer is kelp, the sea-born wonder plant, now genetically altered to grow and flourish in the primeval brine from which blood itself derives....' My God, I'd forgotten entirely."

"He sold kelp pills," Ross confided. "Had a little dig in some inflatable slum, radiation so hard you could poach an egg against the bulkhead."

"Placebos," Pongpianskul said. "Goldreich-Tremaine was full of old unplanned types then. Miners, refugees cooked by radiation. It was before the Bottle shielded us. If they looked hopeless I used to slip a little painkiller into the mix."

"You don't get as old as we are without artifice," Lindsay said. Vetterling snorted. "Don't start reminiscing, Mavrides. I want to know what my angle is, Ross. What are my winnings once Pongpianskul fails?"

"My domicile," Pongpianskul said. "In the Fitzgerald Wheel." Vetterling's eyes widened. "Against?"

"Against your public denunciation of Constantine and Zeuner. And the expenses of the trip."

"Your beautiful place," Margaret Juliano told Pongpianskul. "How can you part with it, Neville?"

Pongpianskul shrugged. "If the future belongs to Constantine's friends then I don't care to live here."

"Don't forget you've just had a treatment," Vetterling said uncomfortably. "You're acting rashly. I hate to turn a man out of his digs. We can put the bet off until—"

"Off," Pongpianskul said. "That's our curse; there's always time for everything. While those younger than ourselves tear into every year as if there were no yesterday... . No, I'm settled, Regent." He entended his leathery hand to Vetterling.

"Fire!" Vetterling said. He took PongpianskuFs thin hand in his heavy one. "Sealed, then. The four of you are witnesses."

"I'll take the next ship out," said Pongpianskul. He stood up, his verdigris-colored eyes gleaming feverishly. "I must make arrangements. A delightful little fete, Mavrides."

Lindsay was startled. "Oh. Thank you, sir. The robot has your hat, I think."

"I must thank my hostess." Pongpianskul left.

"He's cracked," Vetterling said. "That new treatment's unhinged him. Poor Pongpianskul never was very stable."

"What treatment is he using?" Fetzko wheezed. "He seems so energetic." Ross smiled. "An unproven one. He can't afford a registered treatment. I hear he's made an arrangement with a wealthier man to serve as test subject; they split the cost."

Lindsay Looked at Ross. Ross hid his expression by biting into a canape.

"A risk," said Fetzko. "That's why the young ones bear us. So that we can take their risks. And weed out. Bad treatments. With our casualties."

"Could've been worse," Ross said. "He could have fallen for one of those skin-virus scams. He'd be peeling like a snake right now, hah!" Young Paolo Mavrides stepped through the soundproof field in the doorway. "Nora says come see Kleo and Mr. Vetterling off."

"Thank you, Paolo." Juliano and the Regent Vetterling headed for the doorway, small-talking about construction costs. Fetzko tottered after them, his legs buzzing audibly. Ross took Lindsay by the arm.

"A moment, Abelard."

"Yes, Arts-Lieutenant?"

"It's not Security business, Abelard. You won't tell Juliano that I put Pongpianskul up to it?"

"The unproven treatment, you mean? No. It was cruel, though." Ross smirked. "Look, I almost married Margaret a few decades back, and from what Neville tells me my marrying days may be back any day now.... Listen, Mavrides. It hasn't escaped me the way you've been looking these past few years. Frankly, you're in decay."

Lindsay touched his graying hair. "You're not the first to say so."

"It's not a money problem?"

"No." He sighed. "I don't want my genetics inspected. There are too many Security groups watching, and frankly I'm not all I seem...."

"Who the hell is, at this age? Listen, Mavrides: I figured it was something like that, you being eunique. That's my point: I've gotten wind of something, very quiet, very confidential. It costs but there's no questions asked, no records: operations take place in a discreet. Out in one of the dogtowns."

"I see," Lindsay said. "Risky."

Ross shrugged. "You know I don't get along with the rest of my gene-line. They won't give me their records; I have to handle my own research. Can't we work out something?"

"Possibly. I have no secrets from my wife. May she know?"

"Surely, surely.... You'll do it?"

"I'll be in touch." Lindsay put his prosthetic arm on Ross's shoulder; Ross shuddered, just a little.

The wedding couple had made it as far as the alcove, where they had bogged down in a crowd of well-wishers and hat-fetching junior genetics. Lindsay embraced Kleo, and took Fernand Vetterling's arm left-handed. "You'll take good care of my sib, Fernand? You know she's very young." Fernand met his eyes. "She's life and breath to me, friend."

"That's the spirit. We'll put the new play off awhile. Love is more important."

Nora kissed Fernand, smearing his makeup. Back within the domicile the younger set were hitting full stride. The dancing across the ceiling footloops had degenerated into a near brawl, where young Shapers, screaming with laughter, struggled to shove one another off the crowded dance rig. Several had fallen already and were clinging to others, dangling loosely in the half gravity.

High spirits, Lindsay thought. Soon many of these would be married as well; few would find the convenient meshing of love and politics that Fernand had. They were pawns in the dynastic games of their seniors, where money and genetics set the rules.

He looked over the crowd with the close judgment that thirty years of Shaper audiences had taught him. Some were hidden by the trees of the garden, a central rectangle of lush greenery surrounded by tessellated patio floors. Four Mavrides children were tormenting one of the serving robots, which wouldn't spill its drinks though they tugged it and tripped it up. Lindsay leaped upward in the mild gravity to look past the garden. An argument was brewing on the other side: half a dozen Shapers surrounding a man in black coveralls. Trouble. Lindsay walked to the garden roofway and leaped up onto the ceiling. He pulled himself across the pathway with the ease of long habit, clinging deftly to knobs and foot-niches. He was forced to pause as a pack of three children raced past and over him, giggling excitedly. His sleeve lace came loose again.

Lindsay dropped to the floor on the other side. "Burn the sleeves," he muttered. By now everyone looked a little unraveled. He made his way toward the cluster of debaters.

A young Mechanist stood at the circle's center, wearing well-cut satin overalls with black frogging and a suggestion of Shaper lace at the throat. Lindsay recognized him: a disciple of Ryumin's, come in with the latest Kabuki Intraso-lar tour. He called himself Wells.

Wells had a brash, sundoggish look: short matted hair, shifty eyes, a wide free-fall stance. He had the Kabuki mask logo on his coverall's shoulders. He looked drunk.

"It's an open-and-shut case," Wells insisted loudly. "When they used the Investors as a pretext to stop the war, that was one thing. But those of us who've known the aliens since we were children can recognize the truth. They're not saints. They have played on us for profit." The group had not yet noticed Lindsay. He hung back, judging their ki-nesics. This was grim: the Shapers were Afriel, Besetzny, Warden, Parr, and Leng: his graduate class in alien linguistics. They listened to the Mechanist with polite contempt. Obviously they had not bothered to tell him who they were, though their predoctoral overvests marked their rank clearly.