The Caryatids - Bruce Sterling [133]
Montalban followed her, touched her shoulder. “These people here … they’re not beyond hope! They’re just another runaway experiment.” John rubbed his temples, suddenly weary. “I have so many colleagues working on ‘Relinquishment’ issues—colleagues in both the Dispensation and the Acquis … ‘Relinquishment,’ that’s what we call it when we cram those techno-genies back into their bottles… ‘Relinquishment’ is difficult-to-impossible, and this next stunt I hope to pull—it’s beyond me. It does not walk the Earth, it is literally out of this world.”
Lionel spoke up. “I could make a good case that you’re the best Relinquishment activist of all time, John. You have no peer in that work.”
“Oh, come now.”
“It’s the truth! How many is this? Seven big projects defeated? Eight? You’re doing the seventh and the eighth Relinquishment at the very same time!”
“Oh, it can’t possibly be eight. I’m only thirty years old.”
Lionel was cheering his older brother through his moment of doubt. “There were the hypervelocity engines. That was the first project you killed off.”
“That wasn’t ‘Relinquishment.’ Those were commercial competitors to our family’s launch sites.”
“There were those German tissue-culture labs.”
“I was only tangentially involved in that scandal. Besides, there’s tissue-culture practice all over the Acquis nowadays, so I sure wouldn’t call that a victory.”
“You knocked a huge hole in the genetics industry with that intellectual-property battle over DNA as an interactive network instead of patentable codons.”
“That was all science paperwork! That was just about hiring smart lawyers and printing some letterhead. I didn’t lift a finger.”
“They lost billions, though. In terms of damage to hostile technologies—that was your best spanner thrown in the works, ever.”
John Montalban was rallying. “Well, maybe. Maybe you’re right about that one.”
“Last summer you chased those neural fanatics out of the Balkans practically single-handed.”
“They’ll be back. Those boneware people are like mice. You chase ’em out of one spot, they pop up in a hundred other places … How many wild stunts does this make out of me? You’re tiring me.”
“There’s our hosts here. They’ll sure need some taming.”
“ ‘Constructive engagement.’ Simple diplomacy. They just need to be brought around to the world system, taught what side their bread is buttered on. Anyone could do that.”
“But you spotted their hidden tomb, John. Tons and tons of burned machinery. The backup records of the Chinese state. That’s gonna be the biggest archaeological discovery since the First Emperor of China burned all the books.”
“No it won’t. Bandits have been raiding that tomb for years now. There’s probably some idiot raiding it right now. I had my informants, I had researchers, I even had inside help … and, hell, Lionel, the chances are really great that some lethal Chinese Scorpion team walks up to the two of us, now, out of nowhere, and we end up dead. Dead today. I’m gambling our lives, and the Earth’s future, on something crazy that happened forty-eight hours ago. I’m gambling that the Acquis and the Dispensation have faster reflexes, after a catastrophe, than any nation-state. And they might dither. Or quarrel. And forget all about their necessity for speed. And brilliancy. And lightness and glory, and then we are both dead. And then we’re not two rich idiots from California who are provisionally dead. We’ll be the ashes of history.”
Lionel pointed at Sonja. “There is her. You know that means hope.”
“What, you mean Sonja? What about Sonja?”
“I mean all of them. I mean the Mihajlovic Project. That was your ultimate feat. That one was your greatest triumph, that was the most humane one, the most decent and loving Relinquishment of all.”
Seeing the look on her face—Montalban always did that—Montalban was quick to apologize to her. “You have to forgive him, Sonja. Lionel’s just a kid.”
“Oh no,” said Sonja through gritted teeth, “I love to hear him talk about us.”
Lionel was stricken. “I didn’t mean