Distraction - Bruce Sterling [205]
“Sometimes.”
“Now you’ve made these people aware of their mutual interest with the scientific research community. Another group of people who basically live outside the state, outside of economics. One wants freedom of inquiry, and the other wants freedom from physical want, and neither of them has any sense of responsibility to the rest of us. In fact, the rest of us have given up expecting anything from them. We no longer hope that science will give us Utopia, or even a real improvement. Science just adds more factors to the mix, and makes everything more unstable. We’ve given up on our dispossessed, too. We have no illusion that we can employ them, or keep them docile with more bio-bread, or more cyber-circuses. And now you’ve brought these two groups together and they’ve become a real coalition.”
“I’m with you, Senator. I’m following the argument.”
“What now, Oscar? What are they going to do now? What becomes of the rest of us?”
“Hell, I don’t know!” Oscar shouted. “I just saw Huey doing it, that’s all. We were in a feud with Huey—you pushed me into the feud with Huey! The lab was broke, it was halfway in his pocket already, and he was just going to rack them up. They would just … become his creatures. I didn’t want them to be his creatures.”
“What’s the difference? If they’re still creatures.”
“The difference? Between me and Green Huey? Okay! At last a question I can answer! The difference between me and Huey is that whatever Huey does is always about Huey. It’s always about Huey first and foremost, and it’s always about the greater glory of Huey. But the things that I do will never, ever be about me. They aren’t allowed to be about me.”
“Because of the way you were born.”
“Alcott, it’s worse than that. I wasn’t even born at all.”
Lorena spoke up. “I think you two boys should stop all this. You’re going in circles. Why don’t we get something to eat?”
“I don’t mean to wound his feelings,” Bambakias said reasonably. “I’m just looking at the structure critically, and I’m pointing out that there’s nothing holding it up.”
Lorena folded her arms. “Why pick on Oscar, for heaven’s sake? The President sent a newspaper-boat navy across the Atlantic, and there was nothing holding that up either. The War will be over in Washington soon. It can’t go on, it’s a stage show. Then the War will be over here too. They’ll just fold all this up, and we’ll find some other distraction. That’s the way life is now. Stop fussing about it.”
Bambakias paused thoughtfully. “You’re right, dear. I’m sorry. I was getting all worked up.”
“We’re supposed to be on vacation here. You should save some energy for the hearings. I want some chowder, Alcott. I want some étouffée.”
“She’s so good to me,” Bambakias told Oscar. Suddenly he smiled. “I haven’t gotten so worked up in ages! That really felt good.”
“Oscar always cheers you up,” Lorena told him. “He’s the best at that. You should be good to him.”
The Senator and his wife wanted Louisiana cuisine. That was a legitimate request. They took a fleet of limos, and the Senator’s large krewe, and their media coverage, and the Senator’s numerous bodyguards, and the entire caravan drove to a famous restaurant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. They took a great deal of pleasure in this, because it was an excellent restaurant, and they were certain that Huey would quickly learn of their raid.
They ate well and tipped lavishly, and it would have been a lovely meal, except that the Senator was on his mood stabilizers, so he no longer drank. The Senator’s wife drank rather too much. They also brought along the new senatorial press secretary in the krewe; and the new press secretary was Clare Emerson.
Then the caravan returned ceremoniously to the hotel in Buna, and the bodyguards drew great, quiet sighs of relief. The Senator and his wife retired, and the bodyguards set up their night patrols, and the media krewe went out looking for trouble