Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [21]
She undid her obi sash. Her kimono was printed in a design of irises and violets. The skin beneath it was like a dying man's dream of skin.
"Come here," she said. "Put your mouth on my mouth." Lindsay scrambled forward and threw his arms around her. She slipped her warm tongue deep into his mouth. It tasted of spice.
It was narcotic. The glands of her mouth oozed drugs.
They sprawled on the floor in front of the old woman's half-lidded eyes. She slipped her arms inside his loose kimono. "Shaper," she said, "I want your genetics. All over me."
Her warm hand caressed his groin. He did what she said.
THE MARE TRANQULLITATIS PEOPLE'S CIRCUMLUNAR ZAIBATSU: 16-1-'16
Lindsay lay on his back on the floor of Ryumin's dome, his long fingers pressed to the sides of his head. His left hand had two glittering impact rubies set in gold bands. He wore a shimmering black kimono with a faint pattern of irises set in the weave. His hakama trousers were of the modern cut.
The right sleeve of his kimono held the fictitious corporate emblem of Kabuki Intrasolar: a stylized white mask striped across the eyes and cheeks with flaring bands of black and red. His sleeves had fallen back as he clutched his head and revealed an injection bruise on his forearm. He was on vasopressin.
He dictated into a microphone. "All right," he said. "Scene Three: Amijima. Jihei says: No matter how far we walk, there'll never be a place marked for suicides. Let us kill ourselves here.
"Then Koharu: Yes, that's true. One place is as good as another to die. But I've been thinking. If they find our dead bodies together, people will say that Koharu and Jihei committed a lovers' suicide. I can imagine how your wife will resent and envy me. So you should kill me here, then choose another spot, far away, for yourself.
"Then Jihei says—" Lindsay fell silent. As he had been dictating, Ryumin had occupied himself with an unusual handicraft. He was sifting what appeared to be tiny bits of brown cardboard onto a small slip of white paper. He carefully rolled the paper into a tube. Then he pinched the tube's ends shut and sealed it with his tongue.
He put one end of the paper cylinder between his lips, then held up a small metal gadget and pressed a switch on its top. Lindsay stared, then screamed. "Fire! Oh my God! Fire, fire!"
Ryumin blew out smoke. "What the hell's wrong with you? This tiny flame can't hurt anything."
"But it's fire! Good God, I've never seen a naked flame in my life." Lindsay lowered his voice. "You're sure you won't catch fire?" He watched Ryumin anxiously. "Your lungs are smoking."
"No, no. It's just a novelty, a small new vice." The old Mechanist shrugged. "A little dangerous maybe, but aren't they all."
"What is it?"
"Bits of cardboard soaked in nicotine. They've got some kind of flavoring, too. It's not so bad." He drew on the cigarette; Lindsay stared at the glowing tip and shuddered. "Don't worry," Ryumin said. "This place isn't like other colonies. Fire's no danger here. Mud doesn't burn." Lindsay sagged back to the floor and groaned. His brain was swimming in memory enhancements. His head hurt and he had an indescribable tickling sensation, like the first fraction of a second during an onset of deja vu. It was like being unable to sneeze.
"You made me lose my place," he said peevishly. "What's the use? When I think of what this used to mean to me! These plays that hold everything worth preserving in human life. . . . Our heritage, before the Mechs, before the Shapers. Humanity, morality, a life not tampered with." Ryumin tapped ashes into an upended back lens cap. "You're talking like a circumlunar native, Mr. Dze. Like a Concatenate. What's your home world?
Crisium S.S.R.? Copernican Commonwealth?"
Lindsay sucked air through his teeth.
Ryumin said, "Forgive an old man's prying." He blew more smoke and rubbed a red mark on his temple, where the eyephones fit. "Let me tell you what I think your problem is, Mr. Dze. So far, you've recited three of these compositions: Romeo and Juliet, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus,