Read Online Schismatrix plus by Bruce Sterling - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bruce Sterling
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction - General, Fiction - Science Fiction, Space Opera, Short Stories, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science fiction; American, Anthologies (non-poetry), Fiction anthologies & collections
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within the Bank, where she dealt with customers and rivals on terms she thoroughly understood. Still, she knew there was a realm of mental experience, taken for granted by humanity, that was closed to her.
Shame. Pride. Guilt. Love. She felt these emotions as dim shadows, dark reptilian trash burnt to ashes in an instant by searing ecstasy. She was not incapable of human feeling; it was simply too mild for her to notice. It had become a second subconscious, a buried, intuitive layer below her posthuman mode of thought. Her consciousness was an amalgam of coldly pragmatic logic and convulsive pleasure.
Kitsume knew that Lindsay was handicapped by his primitive mode of thought. She felt a kind of pity for him, a compassionate sorrow that she could not recognize or admit to herself. She believed he must be very old, from one of the first generations of Shapers. Their genetic engineering had been limited and they could scarcely be told from original human stock. He must be almost a hundred years old. To be so old, yet look so young, meant that he had chosen sound techniques of life extension. He dated back to an era before Shaperism had reached its full expression. Bacteria still swarmed through his body. Kitsune never told him about the antibiotic pills and supposi-tones she took, or the painful antiseptic showers. She didn't want him to know he was contaminating her. She wanted everything between them to be clean.
She had a cool regard for Lindsay. He was a source of lofty and platonic satisfaction to her. She had the craftsmanlike respect for him that a butcher might have for a sharp steel saw. She took a positive pleasure in using him. She wanted him to last a long time, so she took good care of him and enjoyed giving him what she thought he needed to go on functioning. For Lindsay, her affections were ruinous. He opened his eyes on the tatami mat and reached out at once for the diplomatic bag behind his head. When his fingers closed over the smooth plastic handle, an anxiety circuit shut off in his head, but that first relief only triggered other systems and he came fully awake into a queasy combat alertness.
He saw that he was in Kitsune's chamber. Morning was breaking over the image of the long-dead garden. False daylight slanted into the room, gleaming from inlaid clothes chests and the perspex dome of a fossilized bonsai. Some repressed part of him cried out within him, in meek despair. He ignored it. His new diet of drugs had brought the Shaper schooling back in full force and he was in no mood to tolerate his own weaknesses. He was full of that mix of steel-trap irritability and slow gloating patience that placed him at the keenest edges of perception and reaction.
He sat up and saw Kitsune at the keyboards. "Good morning," he said.
"Hello, darling. Did you sleep well?"
Lindsay considered. Some antiseptic she used had scorched his tongue. His back was bruised where her Shaper-strengthened fingers had dug in carelessly. His throat had an ominous rawness—he had spent too much time without a mask in the open air. "I feel fine," he said, smiling. He opened the complex lock of his diplomatic bag.
He slipped on his finger rings and stepped into his hakama trousers.
"Do you want something to eat?" she said.
"Not before my shot."
"Then help me plug in the front," she said.
Lindsay repressed a shudder. He hated the yarite's withered, waxlike, cy-borged body, and Kitsune knew it. She forced him to help her with it because it was a measure of her control.
Lindsay understood this and wanted to help her; he wanted to repay her, in a way she understood, for the pleasure she had given him. But something in him revolted at it. When his training faltered, as it did between shots, repressed emotions rose and he was aware of the terrible sadness of their affair. He felt a kind of pity for her, a compassionate sorrow that he would never insult her by admitting. There were things he had wanted to give her: simple
Shame. Pride. Guilt. Love. She felt these emotions as dim shadows, dark reptilian trash burnt to ashes in an instant by searing ecstasy. She was not incapable of human feeling; it was simply too mild for her to notice. It had become a second subconscious, a buried, intuitive layer below her posthuman mode of thought. Her consciousness was an amalgam of coldly pragmatic logic and convulsive pleasure.
Kitsume knew that Lindsay was handicapped by his primitive mode of thought. She felt a kind of pity for him, a compassionate sorrow that she could not recognize or admit to herself. She believed he must be very old, from one of the first generations of Shapers. Their genetic engineering had been limited and they could scarcely be told from original human stock. He must be almost a hundred years old. To be so old, yet look so young, meant that he had chosen sound techniques of life extension. He dated back to an era before Shaperism had reached its full expression. Bacteria still swarmed through his body. Kitsune never told him about the antibiotic pills and supposi-tones she took, or the painful antiseptic showers. She didn't want him to know he was contaminating her. She wanted everything between them to be clean.
She had a cool regard for Lindsay. He was a source of lofty and platonic satisfaction to her. She had the craftsmanlike respect for him that a butcher might have for a sharp steel saw. She took a positive pleasure in using him. She wanted him to last a long time, so she took good care of him and enjoyed giving him what she thought he needed to go on functioning. For Lindsay, her affections were ruinous. He opened his eyes on the tatami mat and reached out at once for the diplomatic bag behind his head. When his fingers closed over the smooth plastic handle, an anxiety circuit shut off in his head, but that first relief only triggered other systems and he came fully awake into a queasy combat alertness.
He saw that he was in Kitsune's chamber. Morning was breaking over the image of the long-dead garden. False daylight slanted into the room, gleaming from inlaid clothes chests and the perspex dome of a fossilized bonsai. Some repressed part of him cried out within him, in meek despair. He ignored it. His new diet of drugs had brought the Shaper schooling back in full force and he was in no mood to tolerate his own weaknesses. He was full of that mix of steel-trap irritability and slow gloating patience that placed him at the keenest edges of perception and reaction.
He sat up and saw Kitsune at the keyboards. "Good morning," he said.
"Hello, darling. Did you sleep well?"
Lindsay considered. Some antiseptic she used had scorched his tongue. His back was bruised where her Shaper-strengthened fingers had dug in carelessly. His throat had an ominous rawness—he had spent too much time without a mask in the open air. "I feel fine," he said, smiling. He opened the complex lock of his diplomatic bag.
He slipped on his finger rings and stepped into his hakama trousers.
"Do you want something to eat?" she said.
"Not before my shot."
"Then help me plug in the front," she said.
Lindsay repressed a shudder. He hated the yarite's withered, waxlike, cy-borged body, and Kitsune knew it. She forced him to help her with it because it was a measure of her control.
Lindsay understood this and wanted to help her; he wanted to repay her, in a way she understood, for the pleasure she had given him. But something in him revolted at it. When his training faltered, as it did between shots, repressed emotions rose and he was aware of the terrible sadness of their affair. He felt a kind of pity for her, a compassionate sorrow that he would never insult her by admitting. There were things he had wanted to give her: simple
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