Air

by Geoff Ryman

  e-mail from: Mr. Oz Oz

  4 December

  Mae,

  Many thanks for your voicemail. I am very sorry not to have replied to your others, but I have not been in a position to help anyone until just a few days ago. You were so worried about brigands in hills; so was I. But I felt secure in the main pass down from Yeshibozkent. I pulled over to sleep late at night on the road, and woke up with a gun in my face. Mae, they took everything—the van, the computer, all my clothes, even the beautiful coat you gave me. I was left barefoot by the side of the road. I walked into Sogan (Dilapidated) which lived up to its name and did not open a single door, except for the police, who put me in jail. I am young, Mae, and like a child I wondered why they treated me like a thief. I found out soon enough, for I was going to be treated like a thief by everyone.

  I didn’t know, but it is a racket: government officials go out, and come back shoeless, saying everything is stolen, when in fact they’ve sold everything, especially the computer. I was the third Taking Wing operative that had come back that way, and the government was sick of it. They held me under house arrest until the computer was sold to a foreigner in Balshang. The thieves were so dumb they did not even know about the hard-disk watermark, and, thank heaven, it was an honest bumpkin of a thief who said that, yes, they had stolen it from me. He was so foolish, he even said that he had been the one to persuade the others not to kill me, thinking it would save his neck. It saved mine. The government expects its operatives to be killed defending its property, or spend time in jail. It was Allah’s will—all my material on your village, including both your and Sunni’s question maps had been sent online, and were received as a model of what the operatives were supposed to achieve. So, having been a thief and in serious trouble, I was restored to my former favored position as the only operative who had succeeded in doing anything.

  Thanks to God who sent you to me. Mae, it is all your work, and I have tried to tell my boss that it is so and he waves it away. After all, you are an ignorant peasant woman as far as he is concerned. Still, I have written a further report on you and I have not been short of wind in describing what Teacher Shen did to you. I expect that there will be a result there. This is not cheap revenge, Mae, for truly we cannot have teachers who block the education of our people.

  It also means I am back in a position to chase your machine. As an honest victim of theft, I am in a strong position to denounce corruption. So I am making a big stink. We have traced your machine to a depot in Balshang where we have a signature. Naturally the signature matches no one who works there, so we arrested the shipping agent. Now I know why the government arrested me. The shipper is a tough but civilized man. He keeps saying he knows nothing, and probably does not. But we keep him in jail, and have seized all his goods and thrown all his people out of work so they have no money. The idea is simple. With no job, one of the employees will rat on the one who did it. All we can do is wait.

  Your site makes full use of audio, video, and customer database, so everyone at Taking Wing is proud of you. But, a suggestion: Perhaps you could have something more about how much the government has done for all the united peoples of Karzistan? I know your simple heart bubbles with gratitude for the government, for I heard your words and saw your face when we opened the bank account. But some people here do not know you, and are concerned that people abroad might get an unbalanced picture of the variety of peoples in the Happy Province.

  Your friend in waiting,

  Mr. Oz

  audio file from: Mrs. Chung Mae

  4 December

  Mr. Oz-sir,

  My heart delights in news from you, and I add to the chorus of voices that can confirm your innocent youth and innate honesty. I am overwhelmed that the government makes such efforts to restore my machine to me. I really am not worthy. Do make sure they know how much I owe to you and how I would not have known what to do without you. Your coming was like an angel from the Lord for us. I knelt and praised Allah, for I saw that the government of Karzistan had given me hope. I did not feel it was the place of humble fashion expert to describe the work of government, which passes my understanding. But your just admonition has shown me that however embarrassing my crude efforts would be to myself, I must add my voice to the chorus of earned praise. Please see the new addition to my site and please express my gratitude. I attach a letter for your boss, and if it is worthy, please show it to him.

  e-mail from: Lieutenant Chung Lung

  7 December

  I am not a son to choose to lose a mother, even when she is lost to herself. Your material at your home site has recently much improved. I trust that it was because you listened to your son’s advice. Encouraged, I write again.

  Yes, I married, and in confusion did not tell my mother. And my honest sister in an innocent card told the truth for me, and that is humbling. I’ve clipped on a picture of your new daughter. Her name is Sarah. You see perhaps why it was a bit more difficult to tell you?

  Sarah is from Canada, and has chosen to cast her lot with your son, though I cannot think why. She is beautiful and intelligent, and regards your son as an educated man because of Army College. She stayed in the American Institute here while studying the history of Attila the Wonderful. She is not a model of Karzistani femininity, but she opens a world for me. She is very good with the other officers’ wives, who tell me they find her delightful. She has seen your screens and your last letter and likes both very much!

  I did decode your personal mail. Either I did it, or someone else would. Your friendship with the fashion magpie is well regarded by officials here. I thought I would set your mind at rest.

  Your son,

  Lung

  audio file from: Mr. Oz Oz

  9 December

  Mae,

  Your letter was well received here. All our hearts were warmed by such simple, truthful words from a good Karzistani woman who works so hard for her people. We know what happened to your machine. You will not get that one again, but we have arrested your Mr. Saatchi Saatchi. He will be executed next month. The warehouse boss who I thought was innocent, was not. My boss has personally approved a repurchase for your business. It will be delivered by the army!

  audio file from: Mr. Hikmet Tunch

  9 December

  Mae,

  I am sorry to slip back into your life, perhaps unexpectedly. Don’t worry, you will not need to escape me again—though you should know that I have watched the development of your fashion screens with interest. Do really intend to become part of a romance for Americans? They do so like foreign pets. And how is your little inner friend? Both of them. A file is attached. It is a scientific paper about you. It is about to appear in the Journal of Medical-Computer Interface. It shows that no physical change has happened to you. It shows instead that a mangled imprint of two selves have been united in Air. It shows how this could happen, due to real flaws in the U.N. Format. It also proves that such a catastrophe could not have occurred if the Formatting process had been achieved by opening the Gates. It suggests that elements of the Gates Format be copied across and made part of the U.N. system.

  One further thing I meant to tell you when I drove you back. You are in the Information business, Mae. That means everyone you know will betray you. You can relax with me. I already have done that.

  Your guardian angel,

  Hikmet Tunch

  audio file from: Mrs. Chung Mae

  12 December

  Bugsy, I was pleased to hear about your new apartment. I understand how lovely it is to have a place of your own and how living even with best friends produces sadness. I was so happy for you, to think of my good friend in her own place. Please send me pictures of your apartment. It will ease my heart. Oh, woman, I am avoiding telling my news because I do not know how to begin. It is so strange, the workings of life. I do not say the workings of God, because I am not sure He would do anything like this! Last night, the electricity was shining in Kwan’s barn. The Circle has been s
ewing our beautiful collars late into the night. Naughty girl Sezen bought in some rice wine from her boyfriend’s village. Why not? Her mother Hatijah, who was frightened to join the Circle at first, is becoming lively and outgoing. It is now Hatijah who warms up the wine, and it warms us, and soon we are all singing. Then the door is thrown back with a loud bang, and in comes Mr. Hasan Muhammed. He is strict Muslim gentleman, white lace cap and long beautiful beard, but he is carrying a whip. He strikes the whip against the walls of the barn, and we all scream and clutch our work, for we never lose our embroidery place. There could be an earthquake and none us would lose a stitch. So we all are pressed against the wall and he prowls and curses us as wicked women all—little singing old women who sip a bit of wine.

  Well, Kwan is courageous and she arrives and says, “Mr. Muhammed, have you left your brain behind? Why do you frighten guests in my barn as they work so hard?” And he says, “This all the work of Shytan, all of the women have gone mad since this thing has come, most especially that bride of Shytan,” and he points at me. I hardly need say that this is not an amusing thing. But listen to how destiny plays like a cat with your friend Mae. Mr. Muhammed still jabs his finger like a knife towards me and says: “That devil woman leaves her husband, and now my wife has left me to live with him.” And he cracks his whip. And all us women try hard not to laugh, even Kwan. For you see, we all know his wife Tsang. Tsang is a pincushion, she has had every man she can get. She is plump, ripe, shameless, lots of fun, and about as devoted a wife, and devout a woman, as a gerbil. In my fashion-expert days, I was always giving Tsang a makeover for her latest paramour. Poor old Mr. Muhammed has finally discovered what the rest of the village knows. So there is now a closing of Tsang’s always-welcoming doorway. That Tsang finally should have taken wing with my dull old husband strikes our humble peasant sense of humor like a blow to the elbow. Poor Mr. Muhammed yells like a character in an old play, “They have run off to live together in Balshang!” It is terrible but we all have to fight not to laugh, though the poor man is in agony. Kwan says kindly, “It is not Mae’s fault that your wife strayed, we are all scandalized by such behavior.” And Mr. Muhammed points again at me and says, “Why, then, do you welcome that viper into your midst?” And Kwan answers him: “Because though she strayed, she helps the whole village build business.” He screams back, “She is the mother of all whores! My sweet and faithful wife has had her mind poisoned by that creature and her machine!” And Kwan puts her hand on his shoulder and says, gently, “It was not Mae who corrupted her. Your wife just this spring lured my young son and had sex with him until I asked her to stop, for my son was growing confused. And she had both Mr. Alis before that, and before that, Mr. Pin’s eldest boy, just before his marriage. Tsang corrupted herself. Mae had nothing to do with it.”

  And poor old Mr. Muhammed’s face melts like candlewax. “You all knew?” he says, and drops his whip. “Didn’t you?” asks Kwan. He does not answer but, hollow like an old crisp pinecone, he goes out of the barn. So we all wonder, Did he know as well?

  But oh, woman, there was further news to come. Joe has sold our house. He has sold it to Mr. Haseem and taken the money to live with Tsang in Balshang. The house and lands I fought all this year to pay for and save, those are deserted. The kitchen I cleaned for years, it is dark, with only moonlight for lighting. The brazier I kept alight for thirty years is now cold and full of dust. The chairs and tables are lonely, the cupboard hastily emptied, as if by thieves. I sit wearing all my clothes in Kwan’s unheated attic, listening alone to the happiest time of year, to the harvest, the parties, and the various Circles. I hear life waft up like smoke from the village below. My life has been unstitched, cousin, like embroidery needing to be reworked. Oh, Joe, Joe. You always thought money was quick, because you were slow. So you have quick money to make new life in the city with Tsang. That old mattress, she will be bouncing with other men the instant your back is turned. You will be a dolt in the city. You will lose tools, you will not get work. And you will come back here, and be surprised when your friend Mr. Haseem does not give you back your house. And your father and your brother Siao—what of them, Joe? They now have the indignity of living with your first wife’s brother, Mr. Wang Ju-mei. Oh, Joe, what will you tell the spirits of your fathers? You sold their land? For how much, Joe? Would your good friend Mr. Haseem, knowing you were desperate to be away, be so generous as to give you half of what it is worth? Oh, Joe, you will go to live near your beloved and clever son Lung. You should love and honor him, for the son is far wiser than the father. But you do not understand him. Your son is Army Officer. Your son is Balshang Fox, who has married the Western world. He does not want a dolt of a country father embarrassing him, staying all weekend long when he has to be entertaining the Colonel and his lady wife. Oh, Joe. You will return lost and befuddled with no money, no woman, no son, and wondering, wondering where it all went. Now I know what a man’s chin feels like. It gets shaved clean, everything scraped away, with everything needing to grow back. What else, I wonder, can happen in this year of shaving away? To speak of business: Eye of the Beholder is getting fewer visitors. We have no new orders for the collars, which is great relief and worry at the same time. What can I do to speak to my friends in the world?

  e-mail from: Mr. Ken Kuei

  13 December

  Hello.

  I am very proud, for I have sent you a message like this. You see, I am learning. I have taken your words to heart, and so I learn on Sunni’s machine. I have had to learn without you.

  I am good at learning. And good at waiting.

  Your friend,

  Mr. Ken Kuei

  e-mail from: Miss Soo Ling

  13 December

  Mae,

  I hear that many houses here are imitating your success, selling collars, etc. In any case, all fashions come and go. Have you been thinking what you will do next? There is a Western phrase used by all: Live the change. It means, “Get in first and get out first.”

  e-mail/videomail: no sender

  They have found the Eloi site. They will raid. Get your business off Kwan’s machine now. Move it onto Mr. Haseem’s if you can—now, tonight—but move it in any case.

  16

  WHO WOULD SEND HER SUCH A MESSAGE?

  Mae’s mind raced as her slippered feet slid in the dark on Kwan’s polished wooden floors. Mr. Oz? Hikmet Tunch?

  She went into Kwan’s bedroom and smelled the savor of husband and wife and sleep.

  “Kwan,” she whispered. “Kwan, wake up.”

  There was a groan.

  “Kwan, please, this is urgent, it must be done. Please wake up.”

  The movement, the sound, ceased and a calm, alert voice said: “What is it, Mae?”

  “I just got an audio file. Came on looking like a packet from America, only it was just a scramble of, you know, symbols. Then it started to wake up as words. It said it was a self-decoding cipher. So whoever sent it would have to know the watermark on your hard disk.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That they know about the Eloi home, that they will raid. It said, ‘Get your business off Kwan’s machine.’”

  “Can I see the message?”

  “No, it burned itself up.”

  There was quiet. Outside, a nightjar was singing.

  Mr. Wing spoke next: “If they know about the minority site, there is not much point removing it now,” he said, with the same cool voice he used when repairing plumbing. “What does it say, Kwan?”

  “It tells what is being done to my people,” said Kwan.

  Wing breathed heavily, once, in and out. “You are a woman. Perhaps they will treat you gently. Pretend you are foolish and emotional. Mae, whoever your friend is, they are clever, and you must upload all your data to Sunni’s machine, and wipe it from ours.”

  “Do you know how to do that?”

  “Not if you don’t.”

  The TV was now kept in the diwan. Already secretive, they did not tur
n on the lights, but huddled in quilted coats around the screen.

  Mae tried to copy her business onto Sunni’s machine. She kept repeating different, likely instructions. Finally she found one that worked.

  The TV said, “Making contact with htvl/sunni/takingwing.htvl.”

  Mae told it, “Volume down! Can you make it look as if the files have always been on her machine?”

  The TV made noises like mice were at work inside it. Then it murmured, “I can make it look as if your site has an alias on htvl/sunni.”

  Mr. Wing told Mae, “Do that. You can say you had it on two machines in case one of them went down.”

  “Okay, go ahead,” said Mae. The machine made nibbling noises as if mice were at work. Mae turned to Kwan. “After this, we wipe the Eloi site.”

  “The site stays up,” said Kwan.

  Mae protested. “Kwan! The site will be wiped anyway. But perhaps if it’s not here when they arrive, we can have some story ready!”

  Kwan’s face shone as white and cold as the moon. “It is too late, Mae. I have e-mail from professors about the site; I have answered them. If the government are reading my e-mail, they will have all that, too. They have me, Mae.”

  The two women stared at each other in silence. Blows are like this, thought Mae. At first you are dazed and do not feel the pain. Mae found she was listening for the stealthy rumble of an army truck.

  The TV murmured low: “Permission denied.”

  “Mae,” said Mr. Wing, “let’s at least save your business. We’d better go and ask Sunni for permission now.”

  “Right, okay, I do that. But both of you go, get away!”