Vagabonds

by Hao Jingfang

  Carefully, Eko probed. “It sounds like you’re very familiar with the way things are done on Earth.”

  “I wouldn’t say familiar. Out of personal interest, I’ve picked up a few things here and there.”

  “Why are you interested in Earth?”

  “I suppose … it’s an occupational hazard. I once studied the history of film regulation on Earth. Though that’s no longer an area of focus and analysis, I’ve maintained an interest.”

  “Do you have contacts on Earth, then? I wasn’t aware that direct communication between citizens of the two planets is possible.”

  “Oh, it’s not. But I’ve seen some official introductory material from Earth. Most stick to generalities, and so my understanding is very shallow.” Janet smiled. “I’m so glad you’re here. You can teach me a great deal.”

  Eko fell silent again. His questioning didn’t seem to get him anywhere. There was nothing unusual in Janet’s answers, nothing he could seize on. Every explanation she offered was objective, carefully phrased, inoffensive. Friendly but without any trace of the personal. No, it wasn’t that she was without personality. Her laughter was direct and genuine, and her expressions were sincere and curious. But she always managed to avoid revealing anything of her private life. Eko didn’t know what to do. To continue the conversation this way was to meander aimlessly around the target, but to bring up what he really wanted now seemed too abrupt.

  They arrived in a large, brightly lit hall. Thin pieces of glass in various shapes hung from the ceiling, breaking up the monotonous space with refractions and shadows. Words and images scrolled over the glass surfaces. Once in a while, some larger-than-life figure appeared on one of the screens to deliver a silent lecture to an invisible audience. The air was cool but felt a bit stuffy.

  “Everyone shown on the screens here is an experienced filmmaker,” Janet said. “If you’re interested, you can wear this ceramic earplug and listen to what they’re saying.”

  “How do these glass screens work?”

  “They are plated with a thin conducting and light-emitting membrane. The membrane is so thin that it’s indistinguishable from ordinary glass.”

  “I’ve noticed that Mars likes to make things out of glass. Is there some significance behind it?”

  “Some significance? How do you mean?”

  “Uh … I mean, why did you make this collective decision?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a collective decision; it’s more a matter of necessity. On Mars, we have plenty of sand, but lack clay and stone. Other than iron, we have to rely on glass as the raw material for most things. During the war, Niles Galle invented the construction techniques we now use. Glass is easy to build with and easy to recycle.”

  “I see. But how do you deal with the issue of privacy? What are the rules? I noticed that many houses are not transparent, but the walls in my room are.”

  Janet looked surprised. “They didn’t tell you? All the walls are adjustable! The virtual concierge in your hotel isn’t doing a very good job if it didn’t explain these basic features. The ions in the glass are controlled by electric fields, and you can twist a dial in the room to alter the degree of transparency.”

  Eko felt quite silly. He remembered the grand conclusions about Martian society he had drawn from the transparent walls and was glad that he didn’t commit those to permanent record. He was so steeped in the context of Earth that it was natural for him to fall into the assumptions and political symbolisms prevalent on Earth. But starting the previous night, he was coming to realize the dangers in such carelessness. It wasn’t just that he risked injecting subjective bias but also that he couldn’t get at the objective facts. He wanted to send a message to Earth: there was nothing more dangerous than jumping to conclusions.

  A glass house was just that: a glass house. It was a fact determined by the geology and technology of Mars, with no symbolism behind it, and certainly no political oppression. To capture reality, he needed to go deeper, to dig beneath the surface, until he touched the true context of Mars.

  “I thought the transparency was a deliberate choice,” said Eko.

  “Well …” Janet hesitated. “I suppose it depends on your point of view. Whether something is transparent depends on the light.”

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “No matter how you adjust it, the medium will always be transparent to some forms of light but not others. Total opacity is impossible.”

  “Are you talking about glass … or something else?”

  Janet chuckled, her eyes curving in mirth. “If you stay around here for a few days, you’ll hear people say there are two individuals in Russell District whose words should never be taken as plain description nor as pure metaphor. One of them is Dr. Reini, and the other is me. You can interpret what I said however you like. There’s no real answer.”

  There was a trace of slyness in her that gave her the flightiness of youth. Eko imagined that when she was younger, she must have been very charismatic. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense, but there was a powerful, living authenticity in her. It was a rare quality that drew others to her. He could now understand why Davosky had fallen in love with her.

  “Ms. Brook, I have a confession to make. Forgive me for keeping it from you at first. I just didn’t know how to bring it up without disturbing you. But I think I have to tell you the truth.”

  The joy faded from Janet’s face. “All right. What is it?”

  “I studied under Arthur Davosky. I’m here as his representative.”

  Janet’s face froze, as though she had heard a voice from the ancient past, distant and unreal. He stared at her. They faced each other like two statues. On the glass screens overhead, figures moved and flapped their lips, but the two of them remained still. Eko was staring at her, while Janet was staring at the air between them.

  At length, Janet took a deep breath. “Why don’t you come to my office? We should be sitting down for this.”

  * * *

  “… I was twenty-seven at the time and dating a young man who liked me more than I liked him. He wanted to get married, but I dragged it out, unsure what I wanted. That was when Arthur came to Mars. At first, our relationship was purely professional. I was his designated liaison on Mars, and it was my job to explain the technology to him. And then one day he invited me to make a film with him.

  “Arthur is the type that … you grow fond of over time. He was always full of strange and interesting ideas, figuring out ways to show life in a new light. Since you were his student, I’m sure you know what I mean. At first he explained to me that he wanted to practice using the new techniques, to see if he had really mastered them. I thought nothing of it and agreed to help him. It wasn’t until much later that I understood it was only the first step in his long plan. His aim wasn’t the technology but to realize the ideas in his mind authentically. He became engrossed in the plan for his film, and I … became engrossed in him.

  “I don’t know how much you understand the situation at that time. On Earth, Arthur was very successful, but he had to constantly worry about the commercial success of his next film. That isn’t the case here. All of our incomes are set based on age, regardless of the atelier we’ve joined or our accomplishments. All of our films are uploaded to the central archive, and anyone is allowed to view them without paying for the privilege. Money isn’t something we worry about. Arthur loved this arrangement. As a visitor, he received a stipend and didn’t need to be concerned about making a living. He finally had an opportunity where he didn’t need to worry about the market but only about expressing himself. He had waited for so long for such a chance that, once he had acquired the knowledge of holographic filming, he couldn’t stop himself. Every day he immersed himself in the act of creation, like a man who no longer belonged to the real world.

  “I loved how passionate he was, and he … he fell in love with me. He was like a meteor that had crashed into my life, something I had never experienced. Each day we
experimented with new camera angles, new techniques, new editing styles, and then went to his hotel room to read and debate and make love. He loved thinking about light and shadows. Van Gogh’s ideal was to capture the turbulence of air and light, and that was Arthur’s ideal as well. He told me that the sky on Mars was different from the sky on Earth, and he loved being able to see the stars in sunlight.

  “Arthur didn’t want to leave. His stay on Mars was supposed to last only three months, but he asked for an extension of another three months. At the end of that, he still didn’t want to leave. He asked other Terrans to bring the technology back to Earth while he stayed behind. We began to live together.”

  Janet held a glass but didn’t drink from it. She told her story coolly and slowly. From time to time she glanced at Eko, but most of the time she looked out the window. Her atelier was on the second story of the archive, facing due south, and there was plenty of sun. Outside the window was a row of short palm trees whose tops just reached the floor of the office. In the distance they could see a domed building that resembled a mosque. The light struck Janet’s face from the side, breaking into a tessellated pattern against the texture of her skin. Though eighteen years had passed, the light of reminiscence was clearly connecting her to the past.

  Eko sat across a small round table from her. He also held a glass containing a reddish liquid. Listening to Janet, he could picture the young Davosky like a meteor, direct, quick. It was a different image from the old man on his deathbed, but Eko felt the core of his teacher’s being.

  “I’ve always wondered about something,” he said. “Why did Mars allow him to stay? Weren’t the Martians suspicious of his motives? How could they be sure he wasn’t a spy here to steal technology?”

  “I was his guarantor. Myself and my father. My father was Secretary General of Information at the time, and he agreed to sponsor Arthur after I begged him.”

  “Did you get married?”

  “No. We thought about it, but in the end we didn’t.”

  “Where did you live, then?”

  “In Arthur’s hotel room. Since he wasn’t a Martian, he couldn’t be allocated a residential unit.”

  Eko didn’t know how to continue. He wanted to ask what had happened during the eight years they were together and why Davosky had left Mars in the end. His teacher never spoke of that time, as though it were a black hole into which words disappeared. He struggled to find the right phrasing.

  But Janet spoke before he could. “Tell me: How’s Arthur doing now?”

  Eko was shocked. He had planned to tell her all about Arthur’s life on Earth during the last decade before bringing up the end. He looked at her intent expression. Though she tried to keep the question casual, the tension was obvious in her voice and face. Her smile was frozen, like an expanding balloon stretched taut. With Eko’s reply, it would either let the air out and relax, or burst. She didn’t rush him, but her held breath and intense gaze put even more pressure on Eko. He couldn’t lie, nor could he delay answering indefinitely.

  “He died.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was lung cancer. About half a year ago.”

  Janet held very still for three seconds before breaking down. Her shoulders shook and tears streamed down her cheeks. She covered her mouth with both hands, but the tears continued like a river. She struggled to be quiet, but the effort only intensified her grief. She cried as though nothing could stop her. A whole morning’s worth of politeness, constructed as a defense, had collapsed into nothing. Her vulnerability was laid bare. Though she continued to sit upright in her chair, the devastation in her pose forced one to look away.

  Eko felt her anguish but didn’t know what to do. He doubted it was his place to offer her comfort. After all, she was crying for a good reason. Handing her a tissue, he looked at her and knew that his questioning was at an end. Even the matter of the chip full of Davosky’s memories had to wait for another time. For a long time he simply sat with her until she stopped crying. He sat with her through the longest noon of her life.

  Before he left, Janet brought him to a small monitor. She tapped at it until the screen showed REGISTRATION SUCCESSFUL. She gave him an account number and a password, informing him that he could use them to access the Martian central archive.

  “All of Arthur’s films are still there. Just look for his name.”

  Janet’s voice cracked. Her eyes were swollen and her hair was no longer neatly brushed. But Eko found her beautiful. There was nothing that enhanced a person’s beauty more than genuine emotion. For most of her forty-five years of life, Janet struck those around her as invulnerable. But today she lost the most precious thing in her life. In her heart, she had always believed that Arthur would return one day, and the expectation had made her lonely but open and strong. That was all over now. Eko had ended her hope.

  * * *

  Davosky was dead, but the world didn’t stop advancing. Neither Mars nor Earth ceased to spin simply because a dreamer had died.

  The Earth of the twenty-second century was a world dominated by media, which became the pillar of the world economy. Manufactured images and the personalized web altered social structure and changed the relationship between the individual and the world. As the economy based on physical goods was devalued, trade in IP saved the world.

  You are the web. This was the heart of the IP economy. Everyone contributed their knowledge, and the globe was interconnected into a web so that endless commercial opportunities could be born from the exchange of knowledge. In this web of commerce, even a single sentence or a stray thought could turn into a whole array of products. Trade on this web of knowledge was a revolution, a spring without a source, a business that had effectively zero cost and nearly infinite returns.

  In this revolution, every thought, every sketch, every smiling face was part of the world’s GDP. Everyone sold, bought, hid their own creations, and then enticed others with revelation of these secrets for money. Any idea could generate income over the web, but without the web there was no income. The web was the locus of incessant sparks. Capital overpowered nation-states. Three giant media conglomerates vied for dominance of the world, grew into empires, lobbed propaganda back and forth, and encouraged and discouraged opinions as they sought increased profits. The description from two centuries earlier remained applicable: Investment in media has everything to do with profit and nothing to do with value.

  On the other hand, the Mars of the twenty-second century was also a world of media. But on Mars, media weren’t synonymous with the economy but represented the lifestyle everyone lived. Media created a stable electronic space connected to the various ateliers. It was like a massive cavern in which everyone was allowed to store their creations and from which everyone was free to take what others had stored. The space contained a clear record of copyright and attribution, but there was no profit to be made. To take and to give were both duties, while money was allocated to everyone without regard to their participation in this exchange of ideas.

  Eko understood the concept of media on Earth very well. He was familiar with their fickleness, with tidal waves of fads and trends. He knew how to paint the treasure chest so that it aroused the desire to pay for the privilege of opening the lid. But he had no understanding of media on Mars. In his imagination, media on Mars resembled a silent beast, hidden in darkness, waiting for sacrifices from the faithful. He didn’t understand how individuals related to media and who was controlling whom. Without a doubt, media on Mars freed creators from the burden of having to make a living, but media also prevented creators from obtaining riches and glory.

  His teacher had been a defector, Eko was now sure. He was a courageous lover and a self-aware defector. Of the twenty billion humans on Earth and Mars, he was perhaps the only one worthy of that label. He had shuttled between two planets and observed their bilateral isolation, separate evolution, reciprocal distancing, and mutual ignorance.

  * * *

  After leaving the Tarkovsky
Film Archive, Eko followed the road to Dance School #1, Duncan Troupe. Since the dance school was also in Russell District, he didn’t have far to walk. Following the electronic map, he took a footpath through an area full of shops until he saw the diamond-shaped one-story building. Through the glass walls he could see girls, all dance students, practicing inside.

  Between the footpath and the wall of the studio was a gap filled with flowers. Eko walked along the path until he was next to the building and glanced inside.

  Luoying Sloan. He recognized her from Maearth and the welcome reception. She was practicing at one end of the dance studio by herself while the other students stretched along the barre under the direction of an instructor.

  Eko observed her quietly. He didn’t film. He had studied all the publicly available material on her, and now he wanted to see her in person. Luoying was dancing by herself, practicing the same set of moves again and again. A series of short hops followed by a high leap as her body spun several times in the air. Her dark leotard made her seem even more lithe and pale, and her ink-black hair was neatly pinned up in a bun. From time to time she took a break to get a drink of water, stopped to look outside, and then returned to her practice.

  Eko was looking for the right subject, and he didn’t yet know if she was the one. He took Theon’s suggestion, though not for the reasons Theon tried to entice him with. He had little interest in following around a princess like some paparazzo. But after reviewing her public records and learning what she had done on Earth, he was curious. The reports he had read were in dry and spare prose, but the tension hidden between the lines intrigued him. He tried to imagine the girl, tried to guess where the tension had come from. She looked utterly unremarkable, like a small bottle whose bland white exterior belied the contradictory torrents of thought waging war within—a bottle that contained and concealed a turbulent sea.