Ascendancies by Bruce Sterling

child’s fist, its chiseled planes glittering with the green and gold of endolithic lichen. As it spun it threw tiny glints of fractured light across our faces.
    As it fell, Kulagin appeared and caught it on the points of four extended fingertips. His left eye, an artificial implant, glistened darkly as he examined it.
    â€œEisho Zaibatsu?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” I said. “They handled the synthesizing work; the lichen is a special variety of my own.” I saw that a curious circle was gathering and said aloud, “Our host is a connoisseur.”
    â€œOnly of finance,” Kulagin said quietly, but with equal emphasis. “I understand now why you patented the process in your own name. It’s a dazzling accomplishment. How could any Investor resist the lure of a living jewel, friends? Someday soon our initiate will be a wealthy man.”
    I looked quickly at Wellspring, but he unobtrusively touched one finger to his lips. “And he’ll need that wealth to bring Mars to fruition,” Wellspring said loudly. “We can’t depend forever on the Kosmosity for funding. Friends, rejoice that you too will reap the profits of Landau’s ingenious genetics.” He caught the jewel and boxed it. “And tonight I have the honor of presenting his gift to the Queen. A double honor, since I recruited its creator myself.” Suddenly he leapt toward the exit, his powerful legs carrying him quickly above our heads. As he flew he shouted, “Goodbye, son! May another dog never darken your doorstep!”
    With Wellspring’s exit, the non-Polycarbon guests began leaving, forming a jostling knot of hat-fetching servos and gossiping well-wishers. When the last was gone, the Clique grew suddenly quiet.
    Kulagin had me stand at a far corner of his studio while the Clique formed a long gauntlet for the dogs, arming themselves with ribbons and paint. A certain dark edge of smoldering vengeance only added a tang to their enjoyment. I took a pair of paint balloons from one of Kulagin’s scurrying servos.
    The time was almost on me. For two long years I’d schemed to join the Polycarbon Clique. I needed them. I felt they needed me. I was tired of suspicion, of strained politeness, of the glass walls of the dogs’ surveillance. The keen edges of my long discipline suddenly, painfully, crumbled. I began shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold it back.
    The dogs were still, taping steadily to the last appointed instant. The crowd began to count down. Exactly at the count of zero the two dogs turned to go.
    They were barraged with paint and tangled streamers. A moment earlier they would have turned savagely on their tormentors, but now they had reached the limits of their programming, and at long last they were helpless. The Clique’s aim was deadly, and with every splattering hit they split the air with screams of laughter. They knew no mercy, and it took a full minute before the humiliated dogs could hop and stagger, blinded, to the door.
    I was overcome with mob hysteria. Screams escaped my clenched teeth. I had to be grappled back from pursuing the dogs down the hall. As firm hands pulled me back within the room I turned to face my friends, and I was chilled at the raw emotion on their faces. It was as if they had been stripped of skin and watched me with live eyes in slabs of meat.
    I was picked up bodily and passed from hand to hand around the room. Even those that I knew well seemed alien to me now. Hands tore at my clothing until I was stripped; they even took my computer gauntlet, then stood me in the middle of the room.
    As I stood shivering within the circle, Kulagin approached me, his arms rigid, his face stiff and hieratic. His hands were full of loose black cloth. He held the cloth over my head, and I saw that it was a black hood. He put his lips close to my ear and said softly, “Friend, go the distance.” Then he pulled the hood over my head and knotted