Altered Carbon Read Online Free PDF Page B

you see, have
not been sympathetic. It’s been very upsetting, and we all still feel a
little on edge. If you can imagine—”
    “There’s
no need to explain.”
    “But
I am very sorry. I’m not usually like this. None of us are.” She
gestured around as if to say that the two armed guards behind her would
ordinarily have been bearing garlands of flowers. “Please accept my
apologies.”
    “Of
course.”
    “My
husband’s waiting for you in the seaward lounge. I’ll take you to
him immediately.”
     
    The inside
of the house was light and airy. A maid met us at the veranda door and took
Mrs.Bancroft’s tennis racket for her without a word. We went down a
marbled hallway hung with art that, to my untutored eye, looked old. Sketches
of Gagarin and Armstrong, Empathist renderings of Konrad Harlan and Angin
Chandra. At the end of this gallery, set on a plinth, was something like a
narrow tree made out of crumbling red stone. I paused in front of it and
Mrs.Bancroft had to backtrack from the left turn she was making.
    “Do
you like it?” she asked.
    “Very
much. This is from Mars, isn’t it.”
    Her face
underwent a change that I caught out of the corner of my eye. She was
reassessing. I turned for a closer look at her face.
    “I’m
impressed,” she said.
    “People
often are. Sometimes I do handsprings too.”
    She looked
at me narrowly. “Do you really know what this is?”
    “Frankly,
no. I used to be interested in structural art. I recognise the stone from
pictures, but…”
    “It’s
a Songspire.” She reached past me and let her fingers trail down one of
the upright branches. A faint sighing awoke from the thing and a perfume like
cherries and mustard wafted into the air.
    “Is
it alive?”
    “No
one knows.” There was a sudden enthusiasm in her tone that I liked her
better for. “On Mars they grow to be a hundred metres tall, sometimes as
wide as this house at the root. You can hear them singing for kilometres. The
perfume carries as well. From the erosion patterns, we think that most of them
are at least ten thousand years old. This one might only have been around since
the founding of the Roman empire.”
    “Must
have been expensive. To bring it back to Earth, I mean.”
    “Money
wasn’t an object, Mr.Kovacs.” The mask was back in place. Time to
move on.
    We made
double time down the left-hand corridor, perhaps to make up for our unscheduled
stop. With each step Mrs.Bancroft’s breasts jiggled under the thin
material of the leotard and I took a morose interest in the art on the other
side of the corridor. More Empathist work, Angin Chandra with her slender hand
resting on a thrusting phallus of a rocket. Not much help.
    The seaward
lounge was built on the end of the house’s west wing. Mrs.Bancroft took
me into it through an unobtrusive wooden door and the sun hit us in the eyes as
soon as we entered.
    “Laurens.
This is Mr.Kovacs.”
    I lifted a
hand to shade my eyes and saw that the seaward lounge had an upper level with
sliding glass doors that accessed a balcony. Leaning on the balcony was a man.
He must have heard us come in; come to that, he must have heard the police
cruiser arrive and known what it signified, but still he stayed where he was,
staring out to sea. Coming back from the dead sometimes makes you feel that
way. Or maybe it was just arrogance. Mrs.Bancroft nodded me forward and we went
up a set of stairs made from the same wood as the door. For the first time I
noticed that the walls of the room were shelved from top to bottom with books.
The sun was laying an even coat of orange light along their spines.
    As we came
out onto the balcony, Bancroft turned to face us. There was a book in his hand,
folded closed over his fingers.
    “Mr.Kovacs.”
He transferred the book so that he could shake my hand. “It’s a
pleasure to meet you at last. How do you find the new sleeve?”
    “It’s
fine. Comfortable.”
    “Yes,
I didn’t involve myself too much in the details,