Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [75]
"Neville." Sigmund Fetzko spoke heavily. "You are talking as if you were a boy."
Pongpianskul leaned back. "I confess I've been reading my old speeches since my last rejuve."
"That's what got you purged," Vetterling said.
"My taste for antiquities? My own speeches are antiques by now. But the issues are still with us, friends. Community and anarchy. Politics pulls things together; technology blows them apart. Little enclaves like the Republic should be preserved intact. So that if our own tampering strikes us down, there'll be someone left to pick up the pieces."
"There's the Earth," said Fetzko.
"I draw the line at barbarians," Pongpianskul said. He sipped his drink, a tranquilizer frappe.
"If you had any guts, Pongpianskul," Ross said, "you'd go to the Republic and tackle things firsthand."
Pongpianskul sniffed. "I'll wager I could gather damning evidence there."
"Nonsense," said Vetterling.
"A wager?" Ross looked from one to the other. "Let me be arbiter, then. Doctor, if you could find evidence that would offend my hardened sensibilities, we would all agree that right is on your side." Pongpianskul hesitated. "It's been so long since I..." Ross laughed. "Afraid? Better hang back and cultivate your mystique, then. You need a facade of mystery. Otherwise the young sharks will have you for breakfast."
"There were breakfasters after the purge," Pongpianskul said. "They couldn't digest me."
"That was two centuries back," Ross taunted. "I recall a certain episode— what was it—immortality from kelp?"
"What?" Pongpianskul blinked. Then the memory seemed to ooze up within him, buried under decades. "Kelp," he said. " 'The earth-ocean wonder plant.'
" He was quoting himself. " 'You wonder, friends, why your catalytic balances vary.... The answer is kelp, the sea-born wonder plant, now genetically altered to grow and flourish in the primeval brine from which blood itself derives....' My God, I'd forgotten entirely."
"He sold kelp pills," Ross confided. "Had a little dig in some inflatable slum, radiation so hard you could poach an egg against the bulkhead."
"Placebos," Pongpianskul said. "Goldreich-Tremaine was full of old unplanned types then. Miners, refugees cooked by radiation. It was before the Bottle shielded us. If they looked hopeless I used to slip a little painkiller into the mix."
"You don't get as old as we are without artifice," Lindsay said. Vetterling snorted. "Don't start reminiscing, Mavrides. I want to know what my angle is, Ross. What are my winnings once Pongpianskul fails?"
"My domicile," Pongpianskul said. "In the Fitzgerald Wheel." Vetterling's eyes widened. "Against?"
"Against your public denunciation of Constantine and Zeuner. And the expenses of the trip."
"Your beautiful place," Margaret Juliano told Pongpianskul. "How can you part with it, Neville?"
Pongpianskul shrugged. "If the future belongs to Constantine's friends then I don't care to live here."
"Don't forget you've just had a treatment," Vetterling said uncomfortably. "You're acting rashly. I hate to turn a man out of his digs. We can put the bet off until—"
"Off," Pongpianskul said. "That's our curse; there's always time for everything. While those younger than ourselves tear into every year as if there were no yesterday... . No, I'm settled, Regent." He entended his leathery hand to Vetterling.
"Fire!" Vetterling said. He took PongpianskuFs thin hand in his heavy one. "Sealed, then. The four of you are witnesses."
"I'll take the next ship out," said Pongpianskul. He stood up, his verdigris-colored eyes gleaming feverishly. "I must make arrangements. A delightful little fete, Mavrides."
Lindsay