Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [95]
"Welcome to CDN, Auditor Milosz. You too, Policewife. May I offer you hot tea?"
Lindsay accepted the warm bulb gratefully. The tea was synthetic but good. Greta took the bulb but drank nothing. She watched Wells with calm wariness.
Wells touched a switch on the sticky surface of his free-fall desk. A large goose-necked lamp swiveled on its coiled neck with subtle, reptilian grace and stared at Lindsay. There were human eyes within the hood, embedded in a smooth matrix of dark flesh. The eyes blinked and shifted from Lindsay to Greta Beatty. Greta bowed her head in recognition.
"This is a monitor outlet for the Chief of Police," Wells told him. "She prefers to see things with her own eyes, when they have as much importance as you claim your news does." He turned to Greta. "The situation is under control, Policewife." The accordioned door shunted open behind her. Tight-lipped, she bowed again to the lamp, shot a quick look at Lindsay, and kicked her way off the wall and out the door. It slid shut.
"How'd you get stuck with the Zen nun?" Wells said.
"I beg your pardon?" said Lindsay.
"Beatty. She hasn't told you about her cult affiliation? Zen Serotonin?"
"No," Lindsay hesitated. "She seems very self-possessed."
"Odd. I understand the cult is well established in your homeworld. Bettina, wasn't it?"
Lindsay locked eyes with him. "You know me, Wells. Think back. Gold-reich-Tremaine."
Wells smirked one-sidedly and squeezed his bulb of tea, firing an amber stream into his mouth. His teeth were strong and square, and the effect was alarmingly feral. "I thought you had a Shaper look about you. If you're a Cata-clyst, don't try anything desperate under the eyes of the Chief of Police."
"I was a Cataclyst victim," Lindsay said. "They put me on ice for a month. It broke me out of my routines. And then I defected." He pulled the glove from his right hand.
Wells recognized the antique prosthetic. "Captain-Doctor Mavrides. This is an unexpected pleasure. Rumor said you were hopelessly insane. Frankly, the news had pleased me. Abelard Mavrides, the Investor pet. What's become of your jewels and cables, Captain-Doctor?"
"I travel light these days."
"No more plays?" Wells opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a humidor. He offered Lindsay a cigarette. Lindsay took it gratefully. "The theatre's out of fashion," he said. They lit up. Lindsay coughed helplessly.
"I must have annoyed you at that wedding party, doctor. When I came in to recruit your students."
"They were the ideologues, Wells, not me. I was afraid for you."
"You needn't have been." Wells blew smoke and smiled. "Your student Be-setzny is one of ours now."
"A Detentiste?"
"Our thinking's progressed since then, doctor. The old categories, Mechanist and Shaper—they're a bit outmoded these days, aren't they? Life moves in clades." He smiled. "A clade is a daughter species, a related descendant. It's happened to other successful animals, and now it's humanity's turn. The factions still struggle, but the categories are breaking up. No faction can claim the one true destiny for mankind. Mankind no longer exists."
"You're talking Cataclysm."
"There are others just as crazy. Those who hold power in the Cartels, in the Ring Council. Blinding the Schismatrix with hatred is easier than accepting our potentials. Our missions to the aliens have failed because we can't even deal with the strangers who share our own ancestry. We are breaking up into clades. We have to let go and reunite on a more basic level."
"If humankind flies to pieces, what could possibly unite it?" Wells glanced at his videowall and froze a piece of news with his finger ring. "Have you ever heard of Prigoginic Levels of Complexity?" Lindsay's heart sank. "I've never been one for metaphysics, Wells. Your religious beliefs are your own business. I had a woman who loved me and a safe place to sleep. The rest is abstract."
Wells examined his wall. Print blurred by, discussing a scandalous defection on Ceres. "Oh yes, your Colonel-Professor. I can't help you with that. You need a kidnapper