Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [25]
"Sure," said Ryumin. "They love it. It's great. Don't worry." Lindsay scratched his floating, puffy hair. "I don't quite know what to make of this."
A camouflaged surveillance plane had forced itself into the Bubble just before the structure was sealed shut. Against the bright triangular pastels, its dreary camouflage made it as obvious as a severed thumb. The machine yawed and dipped within the fifty-meter chamber, its lenses and shotgun microphones swiveling relentlessly. Lindsay was glad it was there, but it bothered him.
"I have the feeling I've heard this story before," he said. He flipped through the printout's pages. The margins were thick with cartoon stick figures scribbled there for the illiterate. "Let me see if I have it right. A group of pirates in the Trojan asteroids have kidnapped a Shaper woman. She's some kind of weapons specialist, am I right?"
Ryumin nodded. He had taken his new prosperity in stride. He wore ribbed silk coveralls in a tasteful shade of navy and a loose beret, high fashion in the Mech cartels. A silver microphone bead dotted his upper lip. Lindsay said, "The Shapers are terrified by what the pirates might do with her expertise. So they form an alliance and put the pirates under seige. Finally they trick their way in and burn the place out." Lindsay looked up.
"Did it really happen, or didn't it?"
"It's an old story," Ryumin said. "Something like that actually happened once; I feel sure of it. But I filed off the serial numbers and made it my own."
Lindsay smoothed his kimono. "I could swear that... hell. They say if you forget something while you're on vasopressin, you'll never remember it. It causes mnemonic burnout." He shook the script in resignation.
"Can you direct it?" Ryumin said.
Lindsay shook his head. "I wanted to, but it might be best if I left it to you. You do know what you're doing, don't you?"
"No," Ryumin said cheerfully. "Do you?"
"No.... The situation's getting out of hand. Outside investors keep trying to buy Kabuki stock. Word got out through the Geisha Bank's contacts. I'm afraid that the Nephrine Black Medicals will sell their Kabuki holdings to some Mech cartel. And then ... I don't know ... it'll mean—"
"It'll mean that Kabuki Intrasolar has become a legitimate business."
"Yes." Lindsay grimaced. "It looks like the Black Medicals will escape unscathed. They'll even profit. The Geisha Bank won't like it."
"What of it?" said Ryumin. "We have to keep moving forward or the whole thing falls apart. The Bank's already made a killing selling Kabuki stock to the Black Medicals. The old crone who runs the Bank is crazy about you. The whores talk about you constantly."
He gestured at the center stage. It was a spherical area crisscrossed with padded wires, where a dozen actors were going through their paces. They flung themselves through free-fall aerobatics, catching the wires, spinning, looping, and rebounding.
Two of them collided bruisingly and clawed the air for a handhold. Ryumin said, "Those acrobats are pirates, you understand? Four months ago they would have slit each other's throats for a kilowatt. But not now, Mr. Dze. Now they have too much at stake. They're stage-struck."
Ryumin laughed conspiratorially.
"For once they're more than pocket terrorists. Even the whores are more than sex toys. They're real actors, with a real script and a real audience. It doesn't matter that you and I know it's a fraud, Mr. Dze. A symbol has meaning if someone gives it meaning. And they're giving it everything they have." Lindsay watched the actors begin their routine again. They flew from wire to wire with feverish determination. "It's pathetic," he said.
"A tragedy to those who feel. A comedy to those who think," Ryumin said. Lindsay stared at him suspiciously. "What's gotten into you, anyway?
What are you up to?"
Ryumin pursed his lips and looked elaborately nonchalant. "My needs are simple. Every decade or so I like to return to the