Read Online The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling - Free Book Online
Authors: Bruce Sterling
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Fiction - General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Thrillers, Mystery, Science Fiction - General, Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Human cloning
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one place on Earth that Radmila would never, ever go. Radmila Mihajlovic, "Mila Montalban" in distant Los Angeles: Rad-mila was the vital clue here, Radmila was the missing part of this story. Radmila had renounced Mljet, fleeing the distorted horror of her own being, a refugee washing across the planet's seas, like bloody driftwood.
Somehow, Radmila had found this man. She must have fallen on him like an anvil. Remorseless as the rise of day, the world had continued, and now the father and the daughter had ventured here in order to be together.
Montalban flung the child's beach ball high. He waved his hands at the hobject, gesturing like a wizard. Suddenly, startlingly, the beach ball tripled in size. It soared above the shoreline, a striped and glittering balloon. The bubble hung there, serene and full of impossible promise, painted on the sullen storm clouds. The beach ball wafted downward, with all the eerie airiness of a dan-delion seed. It fell as if rescuing them from their misery.
The girl screeched with glee at her father's cleverness. Montalban, his whole being radiating joy and mastery, waved his hands. The ball plummeted to Earth. It bounded off with rubbery energy. The two of them gleefully chased down their weird toy in their oddly posh clothing. Mljet's newest tourists were thrilled to be here. They were entirely happy to treat the dismal wreck of Polace as their private playground. No ruin less awful, less desolate, could suit them and their love for one another.
Vera turned her helmeted head away. Her eyes stung, her cheeks were burning. She waded into the cooling waters of the sea.
A dead water heater, poxed with barnacles, lay pillowed in a deathbed of mud. Vera bent and fetched it up. With one comprehensive nervous heave, she threw full power into her boneware. The wrecked machine tumbled end over end and crashed hard above the tide line. The child stared at her in joy and awe.
Vera hopped through the sea, splashing. She found a submerged car.
She tore the rusty hood from its hinges. She flung the bent metal to shore, and it sailed like a leaf. She put her boot against a submerged door and tore that free as well. She threw it hard enough to skip it across the water.
Mary ran down the beach, skipping in glee. "Do it, Vera! Do it, Vera! Do that again!" Montalban hastened after his child, his face the picture of worry. He half dragged Mary away from the wreckage and to a safer distance.
Up went his beach ball again, sudden and bloated and wobbling.
The bubble rose with a wild enthusiasm, its crayon-bright colors daub-ing the troubled sky. Montalban ran beneath the convulsing toy, pretending to leap and catch it. The child clapped her hands politely.
Then the toy burst. It fell into the sea in a bright tumble of rags.
??????????
THE LOCALACQUISCADREStook a keen interest in Vera's feel-ings. With the arrival of her niece on the island, the Acquis cadres were obsessed.
For years, the cadres had accepted the fact that their island society lacked children. That was the condition of their highly advanced work. They didn't need kids to be an avant-garde society, a vanguard of the fu-ture. Surely they had each other.
The Acquis had hard-won experience in managing extreme tech-nologies. Mljet was typical of their policy: a radical technical experi-ment required an out-of-the-way locale. It had to be compact in scale, limited in personnel. A neutered society. A hamster cage, an island utopia: to break those limits and become any bolder posed political risks. Risks posed by the planet's "loyal opposition," the Dispensation. The Dispensation was vast and its pundits were cunning propagan-dists with the global net at their fingertips. They were always keen to provoke a panic over any radical Acquis activity—especially if those ac-tivities threatened to break into the mainstream.
Radical experiments that might be construable as child abuse made the easiest targets of all. So: No children allowed on the
Somehow, Radmila had found this man. She must have fallen on him like an anvil. Remorseless as the rise of day, the world had continued, and now the father and the daughter had ventured here in order to be together.
Montalban flung the child's beach ball high. He waved his hands at the hobject, gesturing like a wizard. Suddenly, startlingly, the beach ball tripled in size. It soared above the shoreline, a striped and glittering balloon. The bubble hung there, serene and full of impossible promise, painted on the sullen storm clouds. The beach ball wafted downward, with all the eerie airiness of a dan-delion seed. It fell as if rescuing them from their misery.
The girl screeched with glee at her father's cleverness. Montalban, his whole being radiating joy and mastery, waved his hands. The ball plummeted to Earth. It bounded off with rubbery energy. The two of them gleefully chased down their weird toy in their oddly posh clothing. Mljet's newest tourists were thrilled to be here. They were entirely happy to treat the dismal wreck of Polace as their private playground. No ruin less awful, less desolate, could suit them and their love for one another.
Vera turned her helmeted head away. Her eyes stung, her cheeks were burning. She waded into the cooling waters of the sea.
A dead water heater, poxed with barnacles, lay pillowed in a deathbed of mud. Vera bent and fetched it up. With one comprehensive nervous heave, she threw full power into her boneware. The wrecked machine tumbled end over end and crashed hard above the tide line. The child stared at her in joy and awe.
Vera hopped through the sea, splashing. She found a submerged car.
She tore the rusty hood from its hinges. She flung the bent metal to shore, and it sailed like a leaf. She put her boot against a submerged door and tore that free as well. She threw it hard enough to skip it across the water.
Mary ran down the beach, skipping in glee. "Do it, Vera! Do it, Vera! Do that again!" Montalban hastened after his child, his face the picture of worry. He half dragged Mary away from the wreckage and to a safer distance.
Up went his beach ball again, sudden and bloated and wobbling.
The bubble rose with a wild enthusiasm, its crayon-bright colors daub-ing the troubled sky. Montalban ran beneath the convulsing toy, pretending to leap and catch it. The child clapped her hands politely.
Then the toy burst. It fell into the sea in a bright tumble of rags.
??????????
THE LOCALACQUISCADREStook a keen interest in Vera's feel-ings. With the arrival of her niece on the island, the Acquis cadres were obsessed.
For years, the cadres had accepted the fact that their island society lacked children. That was the condition of their highly advanced work. They didn't need kids to be an avant-garde society, a vanguard of the fu-ture. Surely they had each other.
The Acquis had hard-won experience in managing extreme tech-nologies. Mljet was typical of their policy: a radical technical experi-ment required an out-of-the-way locale. It had to be compact in scale, limited in personnel. A neutered society. A hamster cage, an island utopia: to break those limits and become any bolder posed political risks. Risks posed by the planet's "loyal opposition," the Dispensation. The Dispensation was vast and its pundits were cunning propagan-dists with the global net at their fingertips. They were always keen to provoke a panic over any radical Acquis activity—especially if those ac-tivities threatened to break into the mainstream.
Radical experiments that might be construable as child abuse made the easiest targets of all. So: No children allowed on the
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