Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [62]
“That’s antique acoustic analog music. There wasn’t much vertical color to the sound back in those days. The instruments were made of wood and animal organs.”
Klaudia sipped nervously at her demitasse. “[You know what the problem is, Maya? This is a party for intellectuals. It’s really stupid to be an intellectual when you’re young. You should be an intellectual when you’re a hundred years old and can’t feel anything anymore. Intellectuals are so pretentious! They don’t know how to live!]”
“Klaudia, relax, okay? It’s still early.”
The wall mural was the most warm and inviting object in the Tête du Noyé. It was not glassy or screenlike at all, it was very painterly, very like a canvas. The screen had been broken up into hundreds of fragments, honeycombed cells, slowly wobbling and jostling. The moving cells swam among one another, and pulsed, and rotated, and mutated. A digital dance of the flowers.
Maya lifted her demitasse cup, formally touched it to her lower lip, and put it back on the table. She watched Klaudia fidget for a while, and then glanced at the mural again. The amber floral shapes were mostly gone, replaced by a growing majority of cool geometrical crystals.
She wasn’t quite sure how she knew it, but she realized somehow that the mural was watching her. The mural had some way to monitor people—probably cameras, hidden behind the screen. Whenever anyone looked at the mural directly, its movement slowed drastically. It only really got going when no one was looking at it.
Maya opened her backpack, and slyly watched the mural in the mirror of her makeup case. The mural knew no better, and thought it had escaped her attention. The little cells became quite lively, flinging sparks of information at one another, blossoming, conjugating, spinning, kaleidoscoping. Maya snapped her case shut, and turned to face the screen directly. The cells froze guiltily in place and crept along on their best behavior.
Eugene ambled over. “Ciao Maya!”
“Ciao Eugene.” She was glad to see him. Eugene had bathed. He’d combed his hair. He was looking very natty in a long brocade coat and stovepipe slacks.
Eugene smiled winningly. “Was ist los, Camilla?”
“Klaudia,” Klaudia said, frowning and tucking in her legs on the couch.
Eugene sat down cheerfully. “You should have logged on at the bar! That’s the custom here at the Tête. I didn’t even know you’d arrived.”
“There’s a first time for everything, Eugene.”
“Most people log on from home to say they’re coming. This scene is very netted. The Tête is our meat rendezvous. I’m pleased that you’ve come. How do you like our host?”
“I don’t much like him,” Klaudia said primly in English.
“Amazing character, isn’t he? He’s a fascinating conversationalist. Got a million stories. He was a cosmonaut.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the only Czech in the lunar colony. Stayed up on the moon all during the plague years. That’s why he wears the suit. They had those immune system problems with the long-term radiation. He tried to make it on Earth without his suit at first, but he caught the staph and it scarred him pretty bad. That’s why he went for the heavy fur.”
“I’ve never met a cosmonaut.”
“Well, you’ve met one now. Klaus owns the Tête. I gotta warn you, Klaus doesn’t much like to talk about his moon years. Most of his friends died during the blowouts and the coup and the purges. But he’s really good to the local scene. He was the only Czech lunarian, a national hero. So the Praha city council lets him do anything he wants. Klaus is no stuffy gerontocrat, he’s really been to the edge. Mit ihm konnte man Pferde stehlen.”
“You don’t have to speak Deutsch just for me,” Klaudia pouted.
“Deutsch is no problem! We got a Shqiperisan guy right over there trying to find someone here who can speak Geg. Geg, or maybe Tosk.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Tirana.”
Reluctantly, Klaudia brightened. “[I love men from Shqiperise,]” she said in Deutsch. “[They’re so industrial and romantic. What does he do?]”
“Virtualitat,