Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [46]
"I'm sorry," Lindsay said. "But it's better than dying. The Shapers are burned, Nora. They're finished. I have no love for the Mechs, believe me." For the first time, he gestured with his right arm. "Let me tell you something I'll deny if you repeat. The Mechs wouldn't exist if it weren't for you. Their Union of Cartels is a sham. It's only united by fear and hatred of the Reshaped. When they've destroyed the Ring Council, as they must, the Mechs themselves will fly to pieces.
"Please, Nora. See it my way for a moment, for the sake of argument. I know you're committed, I know you're loyal to your gene-line, your people back home. But your death won't save them. They're burned, doomed. It's just flBOflRD THE RED CONSENSUS: 1-1-17
"Welcome aboard, Dr. Mavrides," the President said. He extended his hand. Nora shook it without hesitation; her skin was protected under the thin plastic of her spacesuit.
"A fine beginning for the new year," Lindsay said. They were on the control deck of the Red Consensus. Lindsay realized how much he'd missed the familiar pop-blip-and-squeak of the instruments. The sound settled into him, releasing tension he hadn't known he had.
The negotiations were twelve days old. He'd forgotten how bad the pirates looked, how consummately grubby. They had clogged pores, hair rank with you and us now. Eighteen people. I've lived with these Fortunans. We know what they are. They're scum, pirates, marauders. Failures. Victims, Nora. They live in the gap between what's right and what's possible.
"But if you go along, they won't kill you. It's your chance, a chance for the six here.... After they've shut you down, they'll go back to the cartels. If you surrender, they'll take you along. You're all young. Disguise your pasts, and in a century you could be running those cartels. Mech, Shaper, those are only labels. The point is that we live."
"You're tools," the woman said. "Victims, yes, I'll accept that. We're victims ourselves. But victims in a better cause than yours. We came here naked, Abelard. We were shipped here in a one-way drogue, and the only reason we weren't blown away in flight is because the Council launches fifty decoys for every real mission. It costs the cartels more to kill us than we're worth.
"That's why they hired you. The rich Mechs, the ones in power, have turned you on us. And we were surviving. We made this base from nothing with our hands, brains, and wetware. It was you who came to kill us."
"But we're here now," Lindsay said. "What's past can't be helped. I'm begging you to let me live, and you give me ideology. Please, Nora, bend a little. Don't kill us all."
"I want to live," she said. "It's you who should join us here. Your lot won't be of much use, but we could tolerate you. You'll never be true Shapers, but there's room for the unplanned under our aegis. In one way or another, we outflank every move the cartels make against us."
"You're under siege," Lindsay said.
"We break out. Haven't you heard? The Concatenation will declare for us. We have one circumlunar already: the Mare Serenitatis Circumlunar Corporate Republic."
Even here Constantine's shadow had touched him. "You call that a triumph?" he said. "Those decadent little worlds? Those broken-down relics?"
"We will rebuild them," she said with chilling confidence. "We own their youth."
ABOARD THE RED CONSENSUS: 1-1-'17
"Welcome aboard, Dr. Mavrides," the President said. He extended his hand. Nora shook it without hesitation; her skin was protected under the thin plastic of her spacesuit.
"A fine beginning for the new year," Lindsay said. They were on the control deck of the Red Consensus. Lindsay realized how much he'd missed the familiar pop-blip-and-squeak of the instruments. The sound settled into him, releasing tension he hadn't known he had.
The negotiations were twelve days old. He'd forgotten how bad the pirates looked, how consummately grubby. They had clogged pores, hair rank with grease, teeth rimmed