Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [119]
At the northern end of the world, up its sloping walls, a crew of ant-sized workmen tore languidly at the skeletal remains of one of the wirehead hospitals. Shoals of clouds hid the old power grid and the area that had once been the Sours. "It smells different," Lindsay realized. He stumbled on the bicycle path beside the Museum's walls and was forced to watch his feet. They were filthy. "I need a bath," he said.
"Either you crawl or you don't, right? If you've got skin bacteria, what's a little dirt? I like it." She smiled. "It's big here, isn't it? Sure, Goldreich-Tremaine's ten times this size, but nothing this open. A big risky world."
"I'm glad Alexandrina found her way back," Lindsay said. Their marriage had been a success, because it had gotten her what she wanted most. At last he had made amends. It had always been a strain. Now he was free. The Republic had changed so much that it filled him with weird exaltation. Yes, big, he thought, but nowhere near big enough. He felt a sense of impatience with it, a fierce longing to grab hold of something, something huge and basic. He had slept for five years. Now he felt every hour of that long rest pressing in on him with uncontainable reviving-energy. His knees buckled, and Juliano caught him with her Shaper-strengthened arms.
"Easy," she said.
"I'm all right." They crossed the openwork bridge over the blazing expanse of metaglass that separated two land panels. Lindsay saw the former site of the Sours beneath a raft of clouds. The once-foul morass had become an oasis of vegetation so blindingly green that it seemed to shine even in the clouds' shadow. A tall gangling boy in baggy clothing was running headlong beside the woven-wire fence surrounding the Sours, tugging a large box kite into flight.
"You're not the first I've cured," Juliano said as they walked toward it. "I always said my Superbright students had promise. Some of them work here. A pilot project. I want to show you what they've done. They've been tackling botany from a perspective of Prigoginic complexity theory. New species, advanced chlorophylls, good solid constructive work."
"Wait," said Lindsay. "I want to talk to this youngster." He had noticed the boy's kite. Its elaborate paint job showed a nude man crammed stiflingly within the rigid planes of the box kite's lifting surfaces. A woman in mud-smeared corduroy leaned over the woven fence, waving a pair of shears. "Margaret! Come see!"
"I'll be back for you," Juliano said. "Don't go away." Lindsay ambled unsteadily to where the boy stood, expertly managing his kite. "Hello, old cousin," the boy said. "Got any tapes?"
"What kind?"
"Video, audio, anything from the Ring Council. That's where you're from, right?"
Lindsay reached automatically for his training, for the easy network of spontaneous lies that would show the boy a plausible image. His mind was blank. He gaped. Time was passing. He blurted the first thing that came into his head. "I'm a sundog. From Czarina-Kluster."
"Really? Posthumanism! Prigoginic levels of complexity! Fractal scales, bedrock of space-time, precontinuum ur-space! Have I got it right?"
"I like your kite," Lindsay hedged.
"Old Cataclyst logo," the boy said. "We get a lot of old Cataclysts around here. The kite gets their attention. First time I've caught a Cicada, though."
Cicada, Lindsay thought. A citizen of C-K. Wellspring had always been fond of slang. "You're a local?"
"That's right. My name's Abelard. Abelard Gomez."
"Abelard. That name's not too common."
The boy laughed. "Maybe not in C-K. But every fifth kid in the Republic's named Abelard. After Abelard Lindsay, the big historical cheese. You must have heard of him." The boy hesitated. "He used to dress like you. I've seen pictures."
Lindsay looked at the boy's own clothes. Young Gomez wore a faked-up low-grav outfit which sagged dreadfully. "I can tell I'm out of date," Lindsay said. "They make a big deal out of this Lindsay fellow, do they?"
"You don't know the half of it," Gomez said.