Bruce Sterling - Distraction

“This is such a beautiful hotel,” said Albert Gazzaniga. Greta’s majordomo had arrived in the company of Warren Titche and Cyril Morello — two of the Collaboratory’s permanently disaffected activists. Titche fought for perks and cafeteria fare like a radical wolverine, while Morello was the only man in the Human Resources Depart-ment who could be described as honest. Oscar was delighted to see the three of them spontaneously coalescing. It was a sure sign that trends were going his way.

Gazzaniga was clutching a hurricane glass with a little paper par-asol. “Great little restaurant here, too. I’d eat here every day if I didn’t have to breathe all this filthy outside air.”

“It’s a shame about your allergy problems, Albert.”

“We’ve all got allergies in there. But I just had a good idea — why don’t you roof over a street between here and the dome?”

Oscar laughed. “Why settle for half measures? Let’s roof over the whole damn town.”

Gazzaniga squinted. “Are you serious? I can never tell when you’re serious.”

Norman tugged at Oscar’s sleeve. His face was scarlet and his eyes were wet with sentimental tears. “I’m leaving now, Oscar. I guess this is my last good-bye.”

“What?” Oscar said. He took Norman’s suit-jacketed elbow and steered him away from the crowd. “You have to stay after the party. We’ll play some poker.”

“So you can send me back to Boston with a nice cash present, and it won’t have to show on the books?”

Oscar stared at him. “Kid, you’re the first guy on my krewe who’s ever said a word about that sad little habit of mine. You’re a big boy now, okay? You need to learn to be tactful.”

“No I don’t,” said Norman, who was very drunk. “I can be as rude as I want, now that you’ve fired me.”

Oscar patted Norman’s back. “That was strictly for your own good. You pulled a major coup, so you’re all used up now. From now on, they’d sandbag you every time.”

“I just wanted to tell you, no hard feelings. I have no regrets about any of this. I really learned a lot about politics. Also, I got to punch out a professor, and I got away with it. Heck, that was worth it all by itself.”

“You’re a good kid, Norman. Good luck in engineering school. Try and take it a little easy with the X-ray laser gambit.”

“I’ve got a car waiting,” Norman said, shuffling from foot to foot. “My dad and mom will be real glad to see me … It’s okay that I’m leaving. I hate to go, but I know it’s for the best. I just wanted to clear one last thing with you before I left. Because I never really leveled with you about the, uh… well, you know.”

“The ‘personal background problem,’ ” Oscar said.

“I never got used to that. Lord knows I tried. But I never got used to you. Nobody ever gets used to you. Not even your own krewepeople. You’re just too weird, you’re just a very, very weird guy. You think weird. You act weird. You don’t even sleep. You’re not exactly human.”

He sighed, and swayed a little where he stood. “But you know something? Things really happen around you, Oscar. You’re a mover and shaker, you matter. The country needs you. Please don’t let us down, man. Don’t sell us out. People trust you, we trust you. I trust you, I trust your judgment. I’m young, and I need a real future. Fight the good fight for us. Please.”

Oscar had time to examine the Director’s outer office as Dr. Arno Felzian kept him waiting. Kevin passed the time feeding bits of protein to Stickley the binturong, who had just arrived from Boston by air shipment. Stickley wore a radio-tracking collar; his claws were clipped, his fangs were polished, and he was groomed and perfumed like a prize poodle. Stickley scarcely smelled at all now.

Someone — some kreweman of Senator Dougal’s, presumably — had seen fit to decorate the Director’s federal offices in high Texas drag. There were wall-mounted rifles, steer heads, lariats, cowhide seats, a host of shiny commemorative plaques.

Felzian’s secretary announced him. Oscar hung his hat on a tow-ering antler rack inside the door. Felzian was sitting behind his inlaid oak-and-cedar desk, looking as unhappy as politeness would allow. The Director wore bifocal glasses. The metal-and-glass prosthetic gave Felzian a touchingly twentieth-century look. Felzian was a short, slen-der man in his sixties. He might have been bald and fat in a crueler century.

Oscar shook the Director’s hand and took a brindled leather chair. “Good to see you again, Dr. Felzian. I appreciate your taking the time to meet me today.”

Felzian was wearily patient. “I’m sure that’s quite all right.”

“On behalf of Senator and Mrs. Alcott Bambakias, I want to present you with this laboratory specimen. You see, Mrs. Bambakias takes a lively personal interest in animal welfare issues. So she had this specimen thoroughly examined in Boston, and she discovered that he has an excellent bill of health. Mrs. Bambakias congratulates the Col-laboratory on its sound animal rights practices. She also grew very fond of the animal personally, so although she’s returning him to you now, she’s also sending along this personal contribution to help assure his future welfare.”

Felzian examined the document Oscar proffered. “Is that really a signed, paper bank check?”

“Mrs. Bambakias likes a traditional, personal touch,” Oscar said. “She’s very sentimental about her friend Stickley here.” He smiled, and produced a camera. “I hope you don’t mind if I take a few fare-well photos now, for her family scrapbook.”

Felzian sighed. “Mr. Valparaiso, I know you didn’t come here to dump a stray animal in my lap. Nobody ever returns our animals. Never. Basically, they’re party favors. So if your Senator is returning a specimen to us, that can only mean he plans to do us real harm.”

Oscar was surprised to hear Felzian speaking so grimly. Given that this was the Director’s office, he’d naturally assumed that they were being taped. And bugged. Maybe Felzian had just given up on discretion. He accepted surveillance as a chronic disease — like smog, like asthma. “Not at all, sir! Senator Bambakias is deeply impressed by this facility. He strongly supports the federal research effort. He plans to make science policy a mainstay of his legislative agenda.”

“Then I can’t understand what you’re up to.” Felzian reached into a desk drawer and removed a sheaf of printout. “Look at these resignations. These are veteran scientists! Their morale has been crushed, they’re leaving us.”

“That would be Moulin, Lambert, Dulac, and Dayan?”

“They’re four of my very best people!”

“Yes, I agree that they’re very bright and determined. Unfortu-nately, they’re also Dougal loyalists.”

“So that’s it. So they’re very much in your way?”

“Yes, certainly. But you know, they’re not suffering by this. They’re moving out well ahead of the curve. They’ve all been snapped up by offers from private industry.”

Felzian leafed delicately through his papers. “How on earth do you arrange things like this? You’ve scattered them all over the coun-try. It’s amazing.”

“Thank you. It’s a difficult project, but with modern techniques, it’s doable. Let’s just take Dr. Moulin, for instance. Her husband’s from Vermont, and her son’s in school there. Her specialty is endocri-nology. So, we input the relevant parameters, and the optimal result was a small genetics firm in Nashua. The firm wasn’t eager to take her on a placement-service cold-call, but I had the Senator’s office call them, and talk about their domestic competition in Louisiana. The company was very willing to see reason then. And so was Dr. Moulin, once we queried her on those eccentricities in her lab’s expense ac-counts.”