Engineman - Eric Brown [213]
"I hope Ralph hasn't taken the huff over our disagreement last night?"
"I don't know," I said. "I haven't seen him today."
Bartholomew chuckled. "The man is a silly old goat," he said. "When will he learn?"
I was stung. I was about to respond that Ralph was a fine artist and a good man, then paused. "Learn what?" I asked, suspicious.
Bartholomew crossed to a pedestal arrayed with bottles and glasses. "Would you care for a drink, Richard?"
I told him that it was a little too early for me, frustrated by his calculated reticence. He was clearly playing another of his infuriating mind games. He poured himself a large brandy, turned and considered me.
"Learn," he said, "not to take so seriously my little digs. Our differences of opinion hardly matter."
"They matter to Ralph," I said. "He objects strongly to your philosophy. What should he do? Sit back and let your comments go unopposed?"
"But my dear boy, don't you think that I object to his philosophy? I assure you, I find his sentimentality just as sickening as he evidently finds my... my realism." He sighed. "It's a pity we can't still be friends. We were once very close, you know?"
I hesitated. Ralph rarely spoke of his friendship with Bartholomew. "What happened?"
"Oh, we encountered different circumstances, experienced divergent phenomena, and adopted our own philosophies to deal with them. Ralph was always an idealist, a romantic at heart. I was a realist, and the more I experienced, the more I came to see that my view of the world was the right one. Ralph has always had it too easy." He shrugged. "We've reached the stage now where our respective views are irreconcilable. I think he's a woolly-minded bleeding heart, and he no doubt thinks me a hard-nosed neo-fascist. But you know this - you probably think of me in the same way." He smiled, challengingly, across at me.
I murmured something to the contrary and avoided his gaze, wishing I had the strength to tell him what I really thought.
While he was speaking, I noticed a holo-cube on a polished wooden table in the centre of the room. It was large, perhaps half a metre square, and depicted a brown-limbed little girl in a bright blue dress, with masses of black hair and big eyes of lustrous obsidian. The contradiction between Bartholomew's ideals, and the display of such a romantic work of art, was not lost on me.
I crossed the room and paused beside the table. "It's quite beautiful," I said.
"I'm glad you like it. She is my daughter, Elegy."
"Your daughter?" I was taken aback, surprised first of all that he had a daughter, and then that he should choose to display her image in a holo-cube for all to see.
"The child," he said, "is incredibly intelligent. Precocious, in fact. She will go far." And, with that, any notion that Bartholomew had succumbed to paternal sentiment was erased. For him, the holo-cube of his daughter was merely a reminder of her intelligence quotient.
"She celebrates her eighth birthday tomorrow," he went on. "She is visiting me directly from her boarding school in Rome. You'll be able to debate world affairs with her, Richard."
I ignored the sarcasm. "I look forward to meeting her."
Bartholomew smiled. "But come, I'm keeping you. Please, this way."
We took a spiral staircase down to his studio. I recalled that he had described his work last night as utilising a continuum-frame, and I wondered what to expect. The large, circular chamber was filled with sunlight and the machinery of his art: large power tools, computers, slabs of steel and other raw materials.
He gestured across the room to his latest creation, standing against the far wall. It was a heavy, industrial-looking metal frame, hexagonal and perhaps three metres high - for all the world like the nut of a giant nut and bolt. It was not the dull, rusting frame, however, that was the work of art, but what the frame contained: an eerie, cobalt glow, shot through