by Geoff Ryman
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Party of Progress
Today's Events
sunni-ma 'am 's review of good dress high fashion. See how Info makes it possible to select the very dress in your special fabric and colour. Sunni-ma'am's house. Come and have tea at 9:30 after the morning's tasks are done.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER CIRCLE
begins work every day at 8:00 a.m. See our happy ladies at work as the intelligent machine weaves special clothes for each one of our customers. The ladies make even more special handmade items. These are sold for big bucks to our friends in America. If you come at 10:30, Madam Chung will be pleased to show you the Info she has designed and created for your neighbours' businesses. She will tell you
HOW TO MAKE BIG BUCKS FROM INFO. HAPPY FAMILIES
Both of Kizuldah's TV Houses are open to all every evening. Come in for friendly hello-cakes, tea, and village chat with Sunni-ma 'am, or Wing-sir and Kwan in their own homes, at their own machines.
This is a very good thing that has happened to us: the government says so, and the New York Times says so.
6:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m. every night except when snow is too deep.
INSURANCE PARTY
Ten households in our Happy village are even happier, safe in the knowledge that if misfortune falls, they are protected. Mr Wang ju-mei, our village insurer, will be holding another midwinter Jamboree. Come and be warm with wine, Old Mrs Wang's home-cooking, and a free TV show with a difference. You will be the star… a TV show about you. 7:30 p.m. Friday night. Modern music by our modern girl, Sezen!
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
10 January
Dear Miss Soo. I have taken to heart your kind advice of some months ago. I have given this all the thought of which I am capable, and I see so clearly how wise you are. If Balshang is imitating my native costumes, they will take my business because Americans will not see or care that we are real and Balshang is not. So I think: Our own people see America on TV, and will want to look like America. Your house must be planning to sell good cheap clothes for households. The ladies of my Circle are good and cheap. We will give you great deal on duplicate American houseclothes. Maybe your house or maybe even you yourself would be interested?
Your friend,
Chung Mae
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e-mail from: Office of Meteorological Investigation
14 January
Dear Madam Chung,
We were pleased to receive your unusual offer to take readings for us in the Kizuldah sector of the Yeshibozkent Villayet. It is true that we have no regular records of weather from your locale. However, the standards we apply to data collection are very rigorous. This data must then be interpreted via use of n-constant equations before our own database can make use of the information.
Many thanks for your offer, but we see little point in accepting it, either from your point of view or ours.
Bedri Eyoobogloo
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e-mail from: the Office of Agricultural Development
18 January
Dear Mrs Chung,
We are pleased to be able to offer our local weather prediction system. Combined with our partner Office of Land Surveying modelling package, it offers an all-in-one solution for those seeking to predict weather and its impacts on particular geographies. The licence fee is 100 riels a year. This includes an annual update, full online support and Smart Helper installation. As you are a Taking Wing Initiative Centre of Progress, we are also able to offer ten per cent discount.
We await your answer.
Goksel Kartal
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audio file from: Mr Goksel Kartal, Office of Agricultural Development
20 January
It is true that the system does not offer n-constant interpretation. But it is very unusual for normal agricultural use to require such a sophisticated weather prediction system. Why would the Happy Province need to mesh data from Balshang and Beijing?
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audio file from: Mr Bedri Eyoobogloo, Office of Land Use
22 January
Madam Chung, you are quite correct; the process you describe would meet our rigorous standards for data collection, but are you sure you want to do it? You are talking two hours' work a day, I think. Please understand, I think maybe you have this wrong; the government cannot pay you to do this work. Nor can we give you n-constant software. You only pay the licence fee once, but it is one thousand riels! Why are you doing this?
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
22 January
Dear Mr Eyoobogloo, I want to know about the weather. We depend on land here, and water and sun and all those things. N-constant means Chaos theory, right? That means that if I know patterns in Balshang, I know how they affect us, right? This is important because this winter we have high snowfall and warm temperatures. In 1959, this meant a terrible flash flood. It happened with the Erjdha Nefsi, Dragon's Breath, hot wind from the Northern Desert, from Balshang. You see?
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audio file from: Miss Soo Ling
24 January
Your message came at good time, as I am considering setting up my own business. I am replying in haste, and will reply again at leisure. Your friend, Ling.
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
24 January
Mr Tunch, my constant watcher, I finally had the TV read out to me your article. Just to be clear, I cannot read. Which is one great advantage I have over many people. I move by my gut, not my head. But Info has taught me that I have a very good head attached to a very good gut. It gives me such secret pleasure to know that none of you understand Air. Not you, not your Sistemlar, not the UN, not the Gates Format, not all you scientists and Talents and politicians. I know something you do not, something I suspected but hid from you. So I got the better of our deal. So I make another deal with you, Mr Tunch. I will tell you this great thing I know, if you get me the best, most powerful, most accurate software for weather forecasting, with n-constant interpretation. When you have done that for me, I will tell you what Air is and it will blow your world away. Yours with deepest affection, Chung Mae.
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audio file from: Mr Hikmet Tunch
25 January
Mae, Mae, my darling girl, I think you have spent too much time in the hills. You go crazy like an old trapper. I know what you have to tell me. In Air, gravity and thought are the same thing. You know that, because you seized hold of gravity-as-thought and used it to tear my metal fence to shreds when you decided to go home. And you want to tell me that this can be an amazing weapon, that we can use thought-as-gravity to tear whole cities apart. I can tell you that we are already working on that. You are a bright, bright girl. Sorry about the deal, but no deal. Your wise contender, Hikmet.
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
25 January
Ha-ha tee-hee. That is the words of my laughter. I am laughing at you. You are Foolish Gangster. In so many ways. The universe is a diamond of love, and whenever it decides to shine its light on us, you Foolish Gangsters always always try to turn the light that illumines into the light that burns. You take diamonds and turn them into knives to cut. But you have failed, haven't you, Arrogant Child? It has not worked, has it, this great new weapon that works only by thought? I know it will fail, it will go on failing. And since I am Wise Mother, comforting Arrogant Child, I will give away something for free. After all, I am selling Info. There is a thing called Kwan Tom, no? You see, I have other sources of information than you. I knew about eleven dimensions before I met you. Kwan Tom says that the world around us and the things in it are only probable. Atoms go in two directions at once and then suddenly make up their minds. Many realities exist as probabilities, only very, very small. Well, tearing fe
nces is not a probability. It is a miracle. There have always been miracles, Mr Tunch. And they have always been small because they are not at all probable. You try to make your terrible miracles big, and probability will close over you, as if your thoughts were stones thrown into a pond. Your thought will create ripples. Something almost happens. And then the surface of what is probable closes over. Your weapon will never work. I have no words or education. I don't need them. I turn that into freedom, so I fly higher and deeper than you do into reality. I can blow your Foolish Gangster world away and replace it with a better one. Give me n-constant software, or I will keep laughing at you. Ha hee hee ha hee hee hee ha ha hee hee ha ha hee hee…
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audio file from: Hikmet Tunch
26 January
Okay, laugh. The cost of the best n-constant and weather software is nothing to me. I know you only want it to predict the weather, my Weather Talent. You will find the code for it attached to this file with a full licence to use and a Help manual. So come on, then, blow my world away. Your sceptical, very rich friend, Hikmet.
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Agricultural Development Weather Predictor
Audio reading, 26 January: 17:57
Location: School Ridge Drop
Wind velocity: 3.7 kph
Direction: north-northeast
Air temperature: 7°C, 7.03, maybe Okay, plug in direct. Oh, this is cold on the feet!
Air temperature: 7.0298°C
Air temperature with chill factor: 5.25°C
Temperature of snow on surface: 2.7°C
Temperature of snow at base: – 1.8°C
Temperature of runoff: 2.9°C
The village is all blue, like a memory. Every morning, I hear voices when I wake up, the children wailing, their mothers crying. It is the Flood. If I am not careful I fall into Air and I am there with it. So it is good to come out here, Weather Talent on my night patrol. The cold roots me in the Now. The Flood will come, this year or next, whatever. Ah!
This is the worst bit, right down into the muck. Maybe I find an onion left behind. Something for the pot. Soil Temperature: -1.7°C
I can really feel these stones, these terraces. They want to roll, they want to roll down and flatten us. At least all this is solid. Info keeps me sane.
There has always been a flood washing us all away.
Indeed, Mrs Tung, my dear, indeed.
The Flood
Look across the valley. On the Mirror hill, you will see what is left of the village of Aynalar (Mirrors). It is a mirror for you.
In 1959, the whole hillside was wiped away in one night by a flash flood when all the snow melted too fast. Once, the terraces of Aynalar were rich and fertile. It was on the sunny slope of the valley and Kizuldah was the poor cousin, in shade. Now Aynalar is a heap of rocks. This happened during a winter of high snowfall and hot temperatures. This winter is another mirror, a mirror of that winter.
You have seen me. Every morning and every evening I go and measure snow. Three times a day I measure many things, temperature and wind and strength of sunlight through cloud. I am in touch with many government offices to calculate Info.
So far we are okay. It will need to be hotter than even 1959 for the flood to come here.
You will know the flood is coming if the Dragon's Breath happens in winter.
See these pictures? They show our village if the water melts. It shows how deep the water will get, and where you should go.
Don't go to the school. Big rocks will roll down from the terraces there and it could get buried. Everyone should get to Mr Wing's house. It is highest on an outcrop of stone. Those in the valley, like you, Mr Han, move your seed grain now; there won't be time when the Flood comes.
Move things into your lofts. If all else fails, if the Flood comes, get onto your roofs.
I will tell you the situation every day.
Madam Chung Mae
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audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae
28 January
Whooooooooooooo, Mr Tunch! That is the sound of my breath, blowing you away. Everything in Air is eternal, no? So I ask myself, How can we make the imprints? How can we change something that is eternal? Nothing new can happen there. So I think if we are in Air at all, we have always been there. These imprints you make of us have always been there. And then I think: So how do I get back to Mrs Tung's life? When I saw the Flood that destroyed the village of Aynalar, I was really there. The water was icy, I swallowed mud, I felt my child – I mean, Mrs Tung's – snatched away from me by the water. I was in Mrs Tung's life. Sometimes I look up over Kizuldah and I see great floating balloons, or hotels that do not exist, and I am not crazy. I am simply seeing the future through my Airself. I nip in and out of time like a mite living in a sponge. I just go through the holes.
Ah, but then, guess what else I have found, with my nipping? Everything lives in Air, Mr Tunch. Everything is in our balloon world and in Air at once. That means stones, flowers, and birds. And floods and funerals. That means everything is eternal, Mr Tunch. That means we have always had Airselves. If we live in Air at all, then we have always lived there, from the beginning. We have always been able to sometimes see the future or the past. We have always been able to make tiny miracles. Any child knows that. Many women do. It seem that only great big gangsters do not. Everything has always been and has always happened all at once. Which means nothing causes anything else. Which means stories only happen in this poor balloon-world of ours. Stories have no meaning. Nothing can be interpreted. Everything just is, without meaning, without needing your philosophy and your science or all our miseries and myths and tales and explanations. It is all just one big smiling Now. Whooooooooooooooooo. That is the sound of Air, blowing.
CHAPTER 21
Mae came back from her morning weather Talent patrol and found Kwan and Sunni sitting at her kitchen table.
The house was chilly, the brazier burnt-out. Siao was out selling Info services.
'Good morning, ladies,' said Mae, pleased to see her friends.
'Good morning, Mae,' said Kwan, her hands steepled on the table. Sunni nodded, eyes averted.
Kwan asked, 'How long have you been out?'
'Oh. For two hours now.'
'When did you go to bed?' Kwan asked.
'Oh, I had a lot of mail. You see, we tell all customers to be patient with us, for we are snowbound and cannot ship until after March. Some of them find that interesting and write, and I try to answer.'
Kwan held up yesterday's leaflet. 'Did you run out the weather reports, then, too?'
Mae was unwinding her scarf. 'Oh! No. I do that now, in the mornings before the Circle. I would offer you tea, but I have drunk all my winter stock.'
They didn't want tea. Mae sat down with them and began to wonder why they were there.
'Did you really tell Mrs Pin that you know there will be a Flood because you have been to the future?'
Kwan's face looked burnished like wood: hard.
'Not in those words. But yes.'
Kwan and Sunni looked at each other. Sunni asked, 'Do you really believe that?'
Mae found herself adopting a fortified position, feet braced on the earthen floor. 'When you have been in Air for a while, you will see it is true. Air is forever, in both directions. Forward and back.'
Kwan drew in a breath, and said, 'You are saying that you have actually been into the future and stood in the coming Flood here in Kizuldah.'
'I have been in my future life. I suddenly find myself in my future life. Sometimes it is in the Flood. There will be a flood and that is why I warn people.'
Kwan uncrumpled the leaflet in her hand and read it again. 'Mae. We want you to stop worrying people.'
Sunni picked up the thread. 'It is foolish, people are bored with it. They say: "If this is what working with Info does, then let Mae drive herself crazy with it. We will leave it alone." '
Kwan finished: 'It hurts progress,
Mae.'
Sunni sighed. 'As your friends, we are going to ask you to stop.'
No, no, no. These were her friends; this was a simple misunderstanding. Mae began to explain. The Flood. 1959. Temperature and snow. She stood up, got out her printouts, all elevation lines, and water flow. It was hard, practical stuff.
Kwan chuckled in exasperation. 'Honestly, Mae, if you do this one more time to me, I will scream! I have heard what you have to say about the Flood. Can I tell you what it sounds like, Mae? That you are afraid – not of the Flood, but of the future. All this talk of wiping everything away. That is what Air will do, not the Flood. Everyone sees you as a woman who is scared but cannot admit it.'
'And is driving herself and everyone else crazy,' added Sunni.
Kwan sighed. 'It reminds everyone that you have Mrs Tung inside you. It reminds them of the first disaster, that Test. It just makes them think all progress is madness.'
And I am the crazy adulteress woman and I am an embarrassment to you. I didn't think I was, but I am.
The two women looked at each other. Something was clinched.
'Mae,' said Kwan. 'We want you to stop working.'
'Take time out to sleep, eat, relax.'
'Leave the Circle to us, leave the new screens for the site to someone else.'
'Stop going out all over the hills pretending to be a weatherman.'
'Also,' said Kwan, 'there is a lady from Yeshiboz Sistemlar, called Fatimah, who has told us about the pregnancy…'
Sunni leaned forward with concern. 'For heaven's sake, Mae, get rid of it. You know what I am talking about.'
