Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [68]
"We noticed the explosion," the alien said. "An unusual artistic technique."
"We are unusual," Lindsay said. "We are unique."
"I agree," the Ensign said politely. "We seldom see work on this scale. Do you accept negotiations for purchase?"
Lindsay smiled. "Let's talk."
Part 2
Community and Anarchy
Chapter 5
By fits and starts the world entered a new age. The aliens benignly accepted a semidivine mystique. Millennial fervor swept the System. Detente came into vogue. People began to speak, for the first time, of the Schismatrix—-of a posthuman solar system, diverse yet unified, where tolerance would rule and every faction would have a share.
The aliens—they called themselves the Investors—seemed unlimited in power. They were ancient, so old that they remembered no tradition earlier than starflight. Their mighty starships ranged a vast economic realm, buying and selling among nineteen other intelligent races. Obviously they possessed technologies so potent that, if they chose, they could shatter the narrow world a hundred times over. Humanity rejoiced that the aliens seemed so serenely affable. The goods they offered were almost always harmless, often artworks of vast academic interest and surprisingly small practicality. Human wealth poured into the alien coffers. Tiny embassies traveled to the stars in Investor ships. They failed to accomplish much, and they remained tiny, because the Investors charged fares that were astronomical. The Investors recycled the riches they tapped from the human economy. They bought into human enterprises. With a single technological novelty from one of their packed holds, the aliens could transform a flagging industry into a rocketing growth stock. Factions competed wildly for their favor. And uncooperative worlds soon learned how easily they could be outflanked and rendered obsolete.
Trade flourished in the new Investor Peace. Open warfare became vulgar, replaced by the polite covertness of rampant industrial espionage. With each new year, a golden age seemed just out of reach. And the years passed, and passed.
GOLDREICH-TREMAINE COUNCIL STATE: 3-4-'37
The crowd pleased Lindsay. People filled the air around him: colored jackets with a froth of lace, legs in patterned stockings with sleek five-toed foot-gloves. The air in the theatre lobby reeked of Shaper perfumes. Lindsay lounged against one patterned velvet wall, his jacketed elbow hooked through a mooring-loop. He dressed in the cutting edge of fashion: sea-green brocade jacket, green satin kneelongs, stockings pinstriped in yellow. His feet were elegantly gloved for free-fall. A gold-chained video monocle gleamed in his waistcoat.
Braids interlaced with yellow cord bound his long, graying hair. Lindsay was fifty-one. Among the Shapers he passed for one much older—
some genetic from the dawn of Shaper history. There were many such in Gold-reich-Tremaine, one of the oldest Shaper city-states in the Rings of Saturn.
A Mechanist emerged into the lobby from the theatre. He wore a ribbed one-piece suit in tasteful mahogany brown. He noticed Lindsay and kicked off from the doorway, floating toward him.
Lindsay reached out in friendly fashion and stopped the man's momentum. Beneath his sleeve, Lindsay's prosthetic right arm whined slightly with the movement. "Good evening, Mr. Beyer."
The handsome Mechanist nodded and took a mooring-loop. "Good evening, Dr. Mavrides. Always a pleasure."
Beyer was with the Ceres Legation. He was Undersecretary for Cultural Affairs, a colorless title meant to camouflage his affiliation with Mech intelligence.
"I don't often see you during this day-shift, Mr. Beyer."
"I'm slumming," Beyer said comfortably. Life in Goldreich-Tremaine ran around the clock; the graveyard shift, from midnight to eight, was the loosest and least policed. A Mechanist could mingle during the graveyard shift without attracting stares.
"Are you enjoying the play, sir?"
"A triumph. As good as Ryumin, I'd say. This author—Fernand Vetter-ling—his work is new to me."
"He's a local youngster. One of our best."