Read Online Accelerando by Charles Stross - Free Book Online Page A

last-century retro mode that confused him the first time they met, she looks like a Kennedy-era Secret Service man: cropped bleached crew cut like an angry albino hedgehog, pale blue contact lenses, black tie, narrow lapels. Only her skin color hints at her Berber ancestry. Her earrings are cameras, endlessly watching. Her raised eyebrow turns into a lopsided smile as she sees his reaction. “I remember. That cafe in Amsterdam. What brings you here?”
    â€œWhy”—her wave takes in the entirety of the show—“this talent show, of course.” An elegant shrug and a wave at the orbit-capable tampon. “It’s good talent. We’re hiring this year. If we re-enter the launcher market, we must employ only the best. Amateurs, not time-servers, engineers who can match the very best Singapore can offer.”
    For the first time, Manfred notices the discreet corporate logo on the flank of the booster. “You outsourced your launch-vehicle fabrication?”
    Annette pulls a face as she explains with forced casualness, “Hotels were more profitable, this past decade. The high-ups, they cannot be bothered with the rocketry, no? Things that go fast and explode, they are passé, they say. Diversify, they say. Until—” She gives a very Gallicshrug. Manfred nods; her earrings are recording everything she says, for the purposes of due diligence.
    â€œI’m glad to see Europe re-entering the launcher business,” he says seriously. “It’s going to be very important when the nanosystems conformational replication business gets going for real. A major strategic asset to any corporate entity in the field, even a hotel chain.” Especially now they’ve wound up NASA and the moon race is down to China and India, he thinks sourly.
    Her laugh sounds like glass bells chiming. “And yourself, mon cher ? What brings you to the Confederaçion? You must have a deal in mind.”
    â€œWell”—it’s Manfred’s turn to shrug—“I was hoping to find a CIA agent, but there don’t seem to be any here today.”
    â€œ That is not surprising,” Annette says resentfully. “The CIA thinks the space industry, she is dead. Fools!” She continues for a minute, enumerating the many shortcomings of the Central Intelligence Agency with vigor and a distinctly Parisian rudeness. “They are become almost as bad as AP and Reuters since they go public,” she adds. “All these wire services! And they are, ah, stingy. The CIA does not understand that good news must be paid for at market rates if freelance stringers are to survive. They are to be laughed at. It is so easy to plant disinformation on them, almost as easy as the Office of Special Plans . . .” She makes a banknote-riffling gesture between fingers and thumb. By way of punctuation, a remarkably maneuverable miniature ornithopter swoops around her head, does a double-back flip, and dives off in the direction of the liquor display.
    An Iranian woman wearing a backless leather minidress and a nearly transparent scarf barges up and demands to know how much the microbooster costs to buy. She is dissatisfied with Annette’s attempt to direct her to the manufacturer’s website, and Annette looks distinctly flustered by the time the woman’s boyfriend—a dashing young air force pilot—shows up to escort her away. “Tourists,” she mutters, before noticing Manfred, who is staring off into space with fingers twitching. “Manfred?”
    â€œUh—what?”
    â€œI have been on this shop floor for six hours, and my feet, they kill me.” She takes hold of his left arm and very deliberately unhooks her earrings, turning them off. “If I say to you I can write for the CIA wireservice, will you take me to a restaurant and buy me dinner and tell me what it is you want to say?”

    Welcome to the second decade of the twenty-first