Distraction - Bruce Sterling [218]
The Senator’s wife took the phone. “Oscar, listen to Alcott. He’s talking perfect sense to you. I met those women too. You’re the pick of the litter there, that’s very obvious; but they do want to help you anyway. They’re sincere about it, and so are we. You’re very important to us. You stood by Alcott and me in our darkest days, and now it’s our turn, that’s all. Please let us help you.”
“Lorena, I’m not insane. Huey’s been like this for at least two years, and Huey’s not insane either. It’s just a profoundly different mode of cognition. Sometimes I have a little trouble getting issues to clarify, that’s all.”
Lorena’s voice went distant suddenly. “Talk him down, Alcott! He’s using real English now!”
Bambakias came on, in his richest and most intent baritone. “Oscar, you are a professional. You’re a player. Players don’t get angry. They just get even. You have no business wandering around in Louisiana, with an Anglo terrorist hacker who has a police record. That is just not a player’s move. We’re going to nail Huey for this; it’ll take a while, but we’ll pin him down. Huey made a fatal error—he poisoned a member of the President’s NSC. I don’t care if Huey’s got a skull full of turbochargers and afterburners. Insulting Two Feathers by gassing one of his staff was a very stupid move. The President is a very hard man—and most directly to my point, he’s proved himself a far better politician than the ex-Governor of a small Southern state.”
“Senator, I’m listening. I think there’s something to what you say.”
Bambakias exhaled slowly. “Thank God.”
“I hadn’t really thought much about Holland before. I mean, that Holland has so much potential. I mean, we own Holland now, basically, don’t we?”
“Yes, that’s right. You see, Holland is the new Louisiana. Louisiana is yesterday’s news! You and I were right to get involved in Louisiana earlier, there was a serious difficulty there—but as a rogue state, Louisiana is a sideshow now. It’s the Dutch who are the real future. They’re a serious, well-organized, businesslike nation, people who are taking methodical, sensible steps about the climate and environment. Believe it or not, they’re ahead of the United States in a lot of areas—especially banking. Louisiana is over the top. They’re not serious. They’re visionary crawdad-eating psychos. We need serious political organization now, a return to normalcy. Huey is yesterday’s man, he’s out of the loop. He’s a fast-talking loon who throws technological innovation here and there—as if randomly spewing a bunch of half-baked ideas can increase the sum of human happiness. That’s sheer demagoguery, it’s craziness. We need common sense and political stability and sensible, workable policies. That’s what government is for.”
Oscar swirled this extraordinary statement over in his mind. He felt thoughts and memories sifting like a soft kaleidoscope. “You’re really different now, aren’t you, Alcott?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean this regimen you’ve been through. It’s completely changed you as a person. You’re realistic now. You’re sensible and prudent. You’re boring.”
“Oscar, I’m sure that you have some kind of interesting insight there, but this isn’t the time for chatter. We need to stick to the point. Tell me that you’ll come to Den Haag and join us. Lorena and I, we feel that we’re your family—we’re in lieu of your family, at a time like this. You can come here to Holland, and take your place in our krewe, and we’ll set you all straight. That’s a promise.”
“All right, Senator, you’ve convinced me. You’ve never gone back on your word to me, and I’m very touched by that pledge. I can see I’ve been impulsive. I can’t go off half-cocked. I need to think these things all the way through.”
“That’s great. I knew I could make you see sense, I knew I could cheer you up. And now, I think we’ve talked too long on this phone. I’m afraid this line isn’t secure.”
Oscar turned to Kevin. “The Senator says this phone isn’t secure.”