Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [89]
"You're staying with me?"
"As long as you like."
"I see. And if I suggest you leave?"
"Do you really think you'll be better off for that?" Lindsay considered this. "No. Forgive me, Policewife." He felt touchy, obscurely annoyed. His new identity bothered him. He had never had one forced on him before. His old training urged him to take on local coloration, but the years had calcified him.
Greta led him down two flights of stirruped escalators, deeper into the asteroid. The floor and walls were of scuffed and ancient metal, lined with new velcro. The crowd moved in stately, shredding leaps. Overhead, citizens in a hurry flung themselves along with ceiling loops. They followed a very old Dem-bowskan who was making good time along the wall in a velcro-wheeled prosthetic chair. "We'll have a little something to eat," Greta Beatty said.
"You'll feel better."
He considered mimicking her kinesics. He was a little rusty but he thought he could manage it. It might be the smartest thing: to match her easy affability with his own. He didn't want to. He hurt too much.
"Greta, this easy generosity surprises me. Why are you this way?"
"A policewife? Oh, I wasn't involved in security at first. I was a Carnassus wife, a strictly erotic relationship. Promotion came later. I'm not in espionage. I just do liaison work."
"Many others before me?"
"A few. Sundogs mostly. Not ranking Shaper academics."
"You've seen Michael Carnassus?"
She smiled distantly. "Only in the flesh. We're almost there. Harem Police have reserved tables. You'll want one of the windows, I'm sure." The dim intimacy of the Periscope, to Lindsay's light-blasted eyes, seemed impossibly gloomy. Steam rose off the food on the tables. He put on his left glove. He had never been anywhere so cold.
Cool blue light poured through the bulging, concave windows. Lindsay glanced through the metaglass briefly, saw a rocky cavern half full of water. An observation sphere the size of a house was anchored to the cavern's ceiling. Beside it was a bank of blue spotlights, mounted across the ceiling on arching rails. Lindsay set his boots into the stirrups of a low-grav chair. The seat warmed beneath him; its padded saddle was wired with heating elements.
Greta smiled at him across the table, her blue eyes huge in the dimness. It was a friendly smile without flirtation in it; without, in fact, any subterranean elements at all. No fear, no shyness; nothing but a well-balanced hint of mild benevolence. Her blonde hair was parted in the middle and fell in modish Dem-bowska fashion to smooth, blunt-cut edges along her ears and cheekbones. The hair looked very clean. He had an abstract urge to run his hand across it, the way he might run his fingers over the spine of a book. The fiery letters of the menu appeared in the table's dark surface. Lindsay put his gloved hand on the tabletop. Its surface was sticky with adhesive polymers. He pulled his fingers back; the glue held him at first, then released its grip sharply, leaving no trace. He looked at the menu. "No prices."
"The Harem Police will pick it up. We wouldn't want you getting a bad opinion of our cuisine." She nodded across the restaurant. "That gentleman in the biocuirass, at the table to your right—that's Lewis Martinez, with his wife, Lydia. He heads Martinez Corp, his rank is Comptroller. They say she was born on Earth."
"She looks well-preserved." Lindsay stared with frank curiosity at the sinister pair, whose skill as industrial spies was a byword in Shaper Security circles. They were speaking quietly between courses, smiling at one another with unfeigned affection. Lindsay felt a stab of pain.
Greta was still talking. "The man with the tabletop servo is Coordinator Brandt.. . . The group by the next window are Kabuki Intrasolar types. The one in the silly jacket is Wells...."
"Does Ryumin ever dine here?"
"Oh ... no." She smiled briefly. "He transmits in different circles." Lindsay rubbed his bearded chin. "He's well, I hope." She was polite. "I'm not the one to judge.