Distraction - Bruce Sterling [92]
“Good to see you, Oscar,” Bambakias said.
“May I introduce Dr. Penninger,” Oscar said.
“Not another doctor,” the Senator groaned.
“Dr. Penninger is a federal science researcher.”
“Oh, of course.” Bambakias sat up in bed, vaguely adjusting his towel. His hand was like a damp clump of sticks. “That’s enough, Jackson.… Bring my friends a couple of … what have we got? Bring ’em some apple juice.”
“We could use a good lunch,” Oscar said. “I’ve promised Dr. Penninger some of your Boston chowder.”
Bambakias blinked, his eyes sunken and rimmed with discolor. “My chefs a little out of practice lately.”
“Out of practice on the special chowder?” Oscar chided. “How can that be? Is he dead?”
Bambakias sighed. “Jackson, see to it that my fat campaign manager gets some goddamn chowder.” Bambakias glanced down at his shrunken hands, studied their trembling with deep disinterest. “What were we talking about?”
“Dr. Penninger and I are here to discuss science policy.”
“Of course. Then I’ll get dressed.” Bambakias tottered to his bony feet and fled the room, exiting through a sliding shoji screen. They heard him call out feebly for his image consultant.
A fluted curtain shriveled upward like an eyelid, revealing a lucid gush of winter sunlight through the glass blocks. The corner office was a minor miracle of air and light; even half-empty, the space somehow felt complete and full.
A small furry robot entered the office with a pair of plastic packets in its tubular arms. It placed the packets neatly on the carpet, and left.
The abandoned packages writhed and heaved, with a muted internal symphony of scrunches and springs. Geodesic sticks and cabling flashed like vector graphics beneath the translucent upholstery. The packets suddenly became a pair of armchairs.
Greta opened her new, executive-style purse and touched a tissue to her nose. “You know, the air is very nice in here.”
Bambakias returned in gray silk trousers and undershirt, shadowed by a silent young woman, her arms laden with shoes, shirt, and suspenders. “Where’s my hat?” he demanded querulously. “Where’s my cape?”
“These are very interesting chairs,” Greta told him. “Tell me about these chairs.”
“Oh, these chairs of mine never caught on,” Bambakias said, jamming one scrawny arm through the ruffled sleeve of his dress shirt. “For some reason, people just don’t trust computation enough to sit on it.”
“I trust computation,” Greta assured him, and sat. The internal spokes and cables adjusted beneath her weight, with a rapid crescendo of tiny guitar-string shrieks. She settled daintily in midair, a queen on a tensile throne of smart chopsticks and spiderweb. Oscar admired responsive tensegrity structures as much as the next man, but he sat in the second chair with considerably less brio.
“An architect gets the credit for design successes,” Bambakias told her. “The failures you can cover with ivy. But weird decor schemes that just don’t work out—well, those you have to keep inside the office.”
A silent group of krewepeople removed the massage table and replaced it with a folding hospital bed. The Senator sat on the bed’s edge, pulling up his gaunt bare feet like a giant seabird.
“I noticed another set of these armchairs on the way in,” Greta said. “But they were solid.”
“Not ‘solid.’ Rigid. Spray-on veneer.”
“ ‘Less is more,’ ” Greta said.
A spark of interest lit the Senator’s sagging face as his dresser saw to his shoes and socks. “What did you say your name was?”
“Greta,” she told him gently.
“And you’re, what, you’re a psychiatrist?”
“That’s close. I’m a neuroscientist.”
“That’s right. You already told me that, didn’t you.”
Greta turned and gave Oscar a look full of grave comprehension and pity. Since her makeover, Greta’s expressions had a new and shocking clarity—her flickering glance struck Oscar to the heart and lodged like a harpoon.
Oscar leaned forward on his