Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [120]
“I love the toad,” Maya volunteered. “I wouldn’t mind owning that toad myself.”
“What would you do with it, Maya?”
“I’d keep it on my bureau and admire it every day.”
“Then take it,” Paul said. He handed it to her. It was surprisingly heavy; it felt just like a red stone toad.
“Of course that’s not really a valuable Fabergé heirloom,” Paul told them all, casually. “It’s an identical museum replica. The Fabergé original was laser scanned to an accuracy of a few microns, and then instantiated in modern vapor deposition. Oddly, there were even a few flaws introduced, so that the artificial ruby is indistinguishable from the genuine corundum that forms a natural ruby. About a hundred toads were made in all.”
“Oh, well, of course,” said Maya. She looked at the little red toad. It was somewhat less beautiful now, but it was still a remarkable likeness of a toad.
“Actually, there were over ten thousand made. It’s not artificial ruby, either. I lied about that. It’s only plastic.”
“Oh.”
“It wasn’t even fresh plastic,” Paul said relentlessly. “It was recycled garbage plastic, mined from a twentieth-century dump. I just pretended it was the Fabergé original, in order to make my point.”
“Oh, no,” Maya mourned. People began laughing.
“I’m joking, of course,” Paul said cheerily. “In point of fact, that truly is a Fabergé original. It was made in Moskva in 1912. The labor took fourteen skilled artisans a full five months to complete. It’s one of a kind, completely irreplaceable. I’ve borrowed it from the Antikensammlungen in Munchen. For heaven’s sake, don’t drop it.”
“You’d better have it back, then,” Maya said.
“No, you hold it for a while, my dear.”
“I don’t think so. It wears me out when it keeps mutating like this.”
“What if I told you that it wasn’t even made by Fabergé? That in fact, it was an actual toad? Not human workmanship mimicking a toad, but an actual scanned garden toad. Cast in—well, you can choose the material.”
Maya looked at the sculpture. It was a sweet thing to hold, and there was something about it that she truly did like, but it was making her brain hurt. “You’re really asking me if a photograph of a toad can have the same beauty as a painting of a toad.”
“Can it?”
“Maybe they’re beautiful in different categories.” She looked around. “Would someone else hold this, please?”
Sergei took it off her hands with a show of bravado and pretended to smack the toad against the table. “Don’t,” Paul said patiently. “Just a moment ago you admired it. What changed your mind?”
Maya left to look for Benedetta. She found her in a little crowd behind the bar. “Ciao Benedetta.”
Benedetta rose and embraced her. “[This is Maya, everyone.]”
Benedetta had brought four of her Italian friends. They were polite and sober and steady eyed and in ominous control of themselves. They looked very intelligent. They looked very self-possessed and rather well dressed. They looked about as dangerous as any kids she had seen in a long time. Of course they were all women.
Benedetta wedged her into a place at the table. “I’m sorry that I have no Italiano,” Maya said, sitting. “I have a translator, but I have to speak in English.”
“We want to know, what is your relationship with Vietti?” said one of the young women quietly.
Maya shrugged. “He thinks I’m cute. That’s all.”
“What’s your relationship with Martin Warshaw?”
Maya glanced at Benedetta, startled and hurt. “Well, if you have to know, it was his palazzo. You know about the palazzo?”
“We know all about the palazzo. What is your relationship with Mia Ziemann?”
“Who’s that?” Maya said.
The interrogator shrugged and sat back with a dismissive flutter of her hand. “Well, we’re fools to trust this person.”
“[Of course we’re fools,]” said Benedetta heatedly. “[We’re fools to trust one another. We’re fools