Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [96]
Maya thought this over. It sounded very plausible, and seemed to explain a lot. “Does the poem still sound all right in Czestina, though?”
“Czestina is an obsolescent platform,” Novak said. He stood up, stretched his arm like plasticine, and put his decanter in place.
“When do we leave for Roma?” Maya said.
“In the morning. Early.”
“May I sit here and wait for you, then?”
“If you promise to blow out the candles,” Novak said. And he trudged upstairs. After ten minutes his arm hopped down and deftly put itself away.
They left for Roma in the morning. Mrs. Novakova had packed her husband an enormous shoulder-slung case. Novak didn’t bother to take his prosthetic arm.
Maya shouldered her backpack. Bravely she offered to carry Novak’s case. Novak handed it over at once. It weighed half a ton. Novak collected himself with a sigh of discontent, opened his front door with deep reluctance, and took three short steps across the ancient sidewalk into a very new and very polished limousine.
Maya put the case and her backpack in the trunk and climbed into the limo, which departed with silent efficiency. “Why won’t your wife come with us to Roma?”
“Oh, these business events, they are tiresomeness itself, they are completely obligatory. They bore her.”
“How long have you and Milena been married?”
“Since 1994,” Novak grunted. “A marriage in name only now. We live like brother and sister.” He stroked his chin. “No, that doesn’t put it correctly. We’re past any burden of gender. We live like commensal animals.”
“It’s very rare to be married for an entire century. You must be very proud.”
“It can be done. If you forgive one another that awesome vulgarity of intimate desire—well, Milena and I are both collectors, we hate to throw things away.” Novak reached one-handed to his collar and detached his netlink. He thumbed a net-address.
“Hello?” he barked. “Oh, voice mail, eh?” Novak slipped into angry Czestina. “[Still avoiding me? Well, listen to this, you drone! It’s unthinkable—it’s impossible!—that an aged invalid, missing his right arm, forgotten by the world, with no proper studio, and no professional help, could have a turnover of thirty thousand marks in a year! That assessment is preposterous! Especially for the year 2095, a year very poor in commissions! And what’s this needless claptrap about the ’92 extensions? Still demanding your late fees? And even penalties? After you bled us dry? An Artist of Merit of the Czech Republic! A five-time winner of the Praha Municipal Prize! Brought to his knees through your crazy persecutions! It’s an open scandal! You haven’t heard the last from me, you shiftless dodger.]” He shut the link.
“You tell them again and again,” he mourned. “You pile up attestations, applications, documents, years and years of legal correspondence! Oh, they’re senseless. They’re like Capek’s robots.” He shook his head, then smiled grimly. “But I don’t worry! Because I am very patient, so I will outlast them.”
A private business plane was waiting for them at the Praha tarmac, a vision of aviation elegance in white, silver, and peacock blue. “Look at this,” Novak fretted, at the foot of the hinged and perforated entry stairs. “Giancarlo should have sent a steward for me. He knows my grave state of decline.”
“I’m here, Josef, I’ll be your steward.” She opened the trunk and gathered their luggage.
“He’s such a creature di moda, Giancarlo. You should see his château in Gstaad, it’s infested with those Stuttgart lobsters. You know, if they go haywire those crazy machines can murder you. Clip your throat clean through with pincers while you sleep.” Novak stepped aside as Maya lugged the heavy baggage into the plane. Then he hopped spryly up the steps.
There were no beanbags. Maya paused, puzzled. Novak crouched where he stood, and a chair leapt into existence beneath him with silent blinding speed. The plane’s flooring resembled fine Italian marble, but when presented with a lowering human rump its