Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [148]
"May I show you through the Museum, sir?" the Superbright asked. "Our last Curator, Alexandrina Tyler, left an unmatched collection of Lindsaiana."
"Later, perhaps. Is Chancellor-General Constantine receiving visitors?" Constantine was in the rose garden, lying in a lounge chair beside a beehive, staring up into the sun with flat plastic eyes. The years had not been kind to him, despite the best of care. Long years in natural gravity had left his body knotted with muscle, strange knobs and bulges over his delicate bones.
There was no ultraviolet in the mirrored sunlight of the Republic, but nevertheless Constantine had tanned, his ancient naked skin taking on mottled birthmark tinges of purple and blue. He had lost most of his hair, and there were dimpled callosities at strategic points on his skull. The treatments had been thorough and exhaustive. And at last they had succeeded. Constantine turned as Lindsay creaked carefully toward him. The pupils of his plastic eyes were of different sizes; they irised visibly, struggling for focus. "Abelard? It's you?"
"Yes, Philip." The robot sank down beside the lounge chair; Lindsay sat comfortably on its soft, pulpy head.
"So. How was your trip?"
"It's an old ship," Lindsay said. "A bit like a flying geriatrics ward. They were having a revival of Vetterling's The White Periapsis."
"Hmm. Not his best work."
"You always had good taste, Philip."
Constantine sat up in his chair. "Should I call for a robe? I've looked better, I know."
Lindsay spread his hands. "If you could see beneath this suit.... I haven't wasted much money on rejuvenation lately. I'm going for total transformation when I return. It's Europa for me, Philip. The seas."
"Sundogging out from under human limitations?"
"Yes, you could say that. . . . I've brought the plans with me." Lindsay reached inside his coat and produced a brochure. "I want you to look at them with me."
"All right. To please you." Constantine accepted the pamphlet. The center pages showed an Angel's portrait: an aquatic posthuman. The skin was smooth and black and slick. The legs and pelvic girdle were gone; the spine extended to long muscular flukes. Scarlet gills trailed from the neck. The ribcage was black openwork, gushing white, feathery nets packed with symbiotic bacteria.
The long black arms were dotted with phosphorescent patches, in red and blue and green, keyed into the nervous system. Along the ribs and flukes were two long lateral lines. The nerve-packed stripes housed a new aquatic sense that could feel the water's trembling, like touch at a distance. The nose led to lung-like sacs packed with chemosensitive cells. The lidless eyes were huge, and the skull had been rebuilt to accommodate them.
Constantine moved the brochure before his eyes, struggling to focus.
"Very elegant," he said at last. "No intestines."
"Yes. The white nets filter sulfur for bacteria. Each Angel is self-sufficient, drawing life, warmth, everything from the water."
"I see," Constantine said. "Community with anarchy.... Do they speak?" Lindsay leaned forward, pointing to the phosphorescent lights. "They glow."
"And do they reproduce?"
"There are genetics labs. Aquatic ones. Children can be created. But these creatures can last out centuries."
"But where's the sin, Abelard? The lies, the jealousy, the struggle for power?" He smiled. "I suppose they can commit gauche acts of ecosystem design."
"They don't lack ingenuity, Philip. I'm sure they can find crimes if they try hard enough. But they're not like we were. They're not forced to it."
"Forced to it...." A bee landed on Constantine's face. He brushed it gently away. He said, "I went to see the impact site last month." He meant the spot where Vera Kelland had crashed. "There are trees there that look as old as the world."
"It's been a long time."
"I don't know what I expected. .. . Some kind of golden glow, perhaps, some shimmer to show where my heart was buried. But we're small creatures,