Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [47]
"This is our third agreement," the President said formally. "First the Open Channels Act, then the Technological Assessment and Trade Consensus, and now a real breakthrough in social justice policy, the Integration Act. Welcome to the Red Consensus, doctor. We hope you'll regard every angstrom of the craft as part of your national heritage."
The President pinned the printout treaty to a bulkhead and signed it with a flourish. Lindsay printed the state seal with his left hand. The flimsy paper ripped a little.
"We're all nationals here," the President said. "Let's relax a little. Get to, uh, know each other." He pulled a gunmetal inhaler and sniffed at it ostentatiously.
"You sew that spacesuit yourself?" the Speaker of the House said.
"Yes, Madam Speaker. The seams are threadwire and epoxy from our wet-ware tanks."
"Clever."
"I like your roaches," said Rep 2. "Pink and gold and green. Hardly look like roaches at all. I'd like to have some of those."
"That can be arranged, I'm sure," Nora said.
"Trade you some relaxant for it. I have lots."
"Thank you," Nora said. She was doing well. Lindsay felt obscurely proud of her.
She unzipped her spacesuit and stepped out of it. Below it she wore a triangular over-the-shoulders poncho, geometrically embroidered in white and ice blue. The poncho's tapering ends were laced across her hips, leaving her legs bare except for lace-up velcro sandals.
The pirates had tactfully given up their red-and-silver skeleton jumpsuits. Instead they wore dun-brown Zaibatsu coveralls. They looked like savages.
"I could do with one of these," said Rep 3. He held the accordioned arm of his ancient spacesuit next to the thin plastic of hers. "How you breathe in that sucker?"
"It's not for deep space. We just fill it with pure oxygen and breathe as long as we can. Ten minutes."
"I could hook tanks to one. More spacey, citizen-to-be. The Sun would like it."
"We could teach you to sew one. It's an art worth knowing." She smiled at Rep 3, and Lindsay shuddered inwardly. He knew how the sweaty reek of the Rep's suit must turn her stomach.
He drifted between the two of them, unobtrusively nudging Rep 3 to one side. And, for the first time, he touched Nora Mavrides. He put his hand gently on the soft blue and white shoulder of her poncho. The muscle beneath his hand was as stiff as wire.
She smiled again, quickly. "I'm sure the others will find this ship fascinating. We came here in a drogue. Our cargo was nine-tenths ice, for the wetware tanks. We were in paste, close to dead. We had our robot and our pocket toka-mak. The rest was bits and pieces. Wire, a handful of microchips, some salt and trace minerals. The rest's genetics. Eggs, seeds, bacteria. We came here naked, to save launch weight. Everything else we've done with our hands, friends. Flesh against rock. Flesh wins, if it's smart enough." Lindsay nodded. She had not mentioned their electromagnetic pulse weapon. No one talked about the guns.
She struggled to charm the pirates, but her pride stung them. The pride of the Family was justified. They'd bootstrapped themselves into prosperity with bacterial wetware from gelatin capsules no bigger than pinheads. They had mastered plastics; they conjured them out of the rock. Their artifacts were as cheap as life itself.
They had grown themselves into the rock; wormed their way in with soft-bodied relentless persistence, esairs was riddled with tunnels; their sharp-toothed tunneling hoops ran around the clock. They had air blowers rigged from vinyl sacks and ribs of memory plastic. The ribs breathed. They were wired to the tokamak fusion plant, and a small change in voltage made them bend and flex, bend and flex, sucking in air with a pop of plastic lung and an animal wheeze of exhalation. It was the sound of life inside the rock, the rasp of the hoops, the blowers breathing, the sullen gurgling of the fermenters.
They had plants. Not just algae and protein goo but flowers: roses, phlox, daisies—or plants that had known those names