The Caryatids - Bruce Sterling [76]
“Those are called ‘tensile accelerators.’ ”
“Yes, that was it.” Radmila nodded respectfully. “Dr. Feininger, do you suppose, someday, those two methods might be combined? Then we could settle outer space—mankind’s dream come true!”
“I happen to know rather a lot about this topic,” said Feininger unsurprisingly. “Sadly I must inform you that no, the Acquis spaceflight methods, which are very extensively tested and constructed on the strictest precautionary principles, are by no means the same techniques as the aberrant efforts of certain American zealots who fling giant nanocarbon slingshots up the slopes of the Rocky Mountains.”
“Have you ever seen that kind of space launch performed, Dr. Feininger?”
“What, me? No, certainly not.”
“Would you like to see that done? My Family-Firm has a private launchpad.”
“I see. I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Yes, we need that private launchpad in order to reach our private space station.”
“I did know that the Montgomery-Montalbans had built a space station.”
“Well, we didn’t exactly build that. The Government of India built LilyPad. We simply took over management when India suffered their difficulties.”
“Terrible business about India.”
“Very terrible. We have so much to learn from Indian spiritual values.”
Feininger wasn’t happy about his lack of a chair or the way he’d been treated by the local staff, but he was clearly pleased to meet a Hollywood star so willing to talk his kind of utter crap.
“I like to think,” said Feininger slowly, “that I have rather good instincts about people. You are not at all like your public image. I can sense that the private Mila Montalban is a rather fresh, direct, and unpretentious woman.”
“I hope you won’t tell anybody that,” Radmila twinkled. “My public-relations people get all upset with me when I fail to allure and mystify.”
“May I ask you something, Miss Montalban? Not a personal question, but a public political issue? Why do you own a giant war machine that destroys the homes of helpless refugees with heat rays?”
“What, you mean in an immersive-world simulation? I can’t remember my roles in immersive worlds—there are just too many.”
“No, I meant last August,” said Feininger politely. “In the streets of Los Angeles. You were lasciviously dancing on the top of a giant walking tripod that fired laser weapons into people’s homes.”
“Oh that!” said Radmila. “You mean our urban-renewal festival.”
“That behavior truly baffles us in the Acquis,” said Feininger.
“Please try not to worry,” said Radmila, wide-eyed. “I’m just an actress. It’s all for show.”
“Leaving aside the social-justice aspects of preferentially wrecking the neighborhoods of the poor,” said Feininger, “are you aware of what happens, technically speaking, within the legs of those tripods?”
“Should I be?”
“I know the sinister genius who constructed that device,” said Feininger. “His name is Frank Osbourne, and he repeatedly seeks out radical construction methods that are judged unsafe by Acquis central committee. Then Osbourne deploys those methods! Not in harmless simulations—in real life! He builds structures with dangerous crystalline iron and unproven nanocarbon piezo-cables, and then he uses those hazardous devices to demolish historical buildings. A deliberate provocation!”
“Frank is a very theoretical architect,” said Radmila. “I think you’re reading too much into his acts of whimsy.”
Toddy’s tea trolley rolled into the room. Toddy had gone to repeated effort to have tea served as she recovered from her hair-design interventions. Toddy would sit, sip tea, and stare into her hobject globes…
Toddy was no longer here, yet her infrastructure had survived her. Fresh tea had just arrived for the insane husk of a woman who’d been quietly fired into orbit.
“Oh, the tea is here!” Radmila chirped. “I do hope you like