The Caryatids - Bruce Sterling [75]
Radmila had glimpsed a pretty woman in a Chinese military uniform, brandishing a pair of elaborate binoculars, leaning at the railing of the overlook, and carefully studying the blast pattern.
Then that woman, sensing danger somehow, had turned and looked back, and that woman was Sonja.
Before Radmila could decide on anything, to scream or to run, Sonja had stalked straight over, silently, fluidly, and kicked Radmila in the stomach. Sonja’s black-booted foot came blasting forward with blinding, immediate, practiced speed and slammed all the wind out of Radmila. That devastating kick had knocked her cold.
Other tourists had helped her after Sonja had stomped away. When John arrived, deeply worried, Radmila had lied to him. She had claimed that she had fainted, overcome by the shocking sight of the famous ruins of New York. John, who had loved her very much at the time, had known at once that she was lying to him. All kinds of trouble had followed from that.
The trauma of that event had been much worse than confronting Djordje, here in her home stronghold of Los Angeles. Being a man, and the last and the youngest, Djordje was less painful than the others. Djordje had always been different in that way.
At least she knew that Djordje would go away. Djordje was a traitor: he had always excelled at running away.
Now Dr. Feininger entered the hairdressing clinic. The Acquis diplomat seemed discomposed. The hairdressers’ security people were even more ruthless to visitors than they were to the clientele.
“How do you do, Dr. Feininger? Let me persuade the staff to fetch you a chair.”
“Oh no no, please, I don’t want to speak with those people.” Dr. Feininger had an overly perfect, German-accented English. She could hear him carefully machining his verb tenses. “So: Miss Mila Montalban, at last we meet. In person, so much smaller you seem than in your simulations!”
Radmila offered him a tender smile. “You flew here from Europe just to meet me? How exceptional!”
“Yes, I have what they used to call ‘jet lag’!” Feininger pretended to yawn into his manicured hand.
“Please tell me all about your fascinating trip!”
“I logged every minute on my pundit site,” said Feininger, shifting on his feet. “Round and round we spin inside that ring of magnets, many gravities … We were fired into suborbital arc … Free-fall, truly weightless … ! You could see all of it! Though I don’t compare my mediation with yours.”
“I’m sure that your pundit site is very popular with your viewers.” Feininger’s enthusiasm for his toys reminded her of John. She had Feininger tagged by now: he was what they called an Acquis “thought leader.”
As a postgovernmental organization, the Acquis was peppered all over with radical, crazy extremists, but pompous, netcentric blowhards like this guy were the organization’s meat and bread.
Nothing ever made pious, politically correct Acquis geeks happier than some dully public “frank exchange of views.” Radmila had met so many of them, at so many tiresome, life-draining political events, that she could literally smell Acquis thought leaders. Dr. Feininger smelled of cologne.
“What city is your own home base, Dr. Feininger?”
“My base is Cologne.”
Radmila laughed musically. “Such a beautiful city!”
“I never expected to meet an American star so simply and modestly dressed,” said Feininger, eyeing her cleavage in her terry-cloth gown. “One expects an American star to … well … billow, if that’s the right word.”
“Oh, we stars do billow. But this is my private life, and I chose to meet you here very privately.”
“I understand that important distinction,” said Feininger. “In political life, one also treads a fine line between public credibility and personal authenticity.”
“It was brave of you to personally fly to Los Angeles,” said Radmila. “I’m so proud that spaceflight is