Air

by Geoff Ryman

  “Where to, Mae?” demanded Kwan. “You think we should hide?”

  “We’ll take care of ourselves, but first we will go with you,” said Mr. Wing. “Mr. Haseem may not talk to you.”

  They threw stones against Mr. Haseem’s shutters to wake him. He threw the window open and they heard the click of a safety catch. Mr. Haseem had a gun.

  Mr. Haseem rumbled, “Get away from my house, Mae. I bought your husband’s place fairly.”

  “Of course you did,” Wing intervened. “This is trouble with the government. Let us in, Faysal.”

  They were allowed only as far as the kitchen. Sunni automatically bowed to Kwan, sleepily mistaking this for a social call.

  “The government has found our Eloi site,” said Kwan.

  Mr. Haseem looked unmoved. That was their problem, raising stuff like that. Sunni looked alert, and watchful.

  Mae spoke: “I need to copy my business site onto your machine.”

  “Tuh!” said Haseem. “After all that has passed between us?” His heavy face assumed its most natural expression of scorn.

  And Sunni? Her eyes met Mae’s and something passed between them. Sunni turned to her husband and shrugged. “It will cost us nothing. And Mae told us about the wire charges and saved us much money. It is a simple favor to return.”

  “I don’t want trouble with the government,” grunted Haseem.

  “Have you seen Mae’s screens? She has a link to one government office, and another government office, and there is a part on it in which Mae sings gratitude to the government. Having such a site on our machine will be protection against the government.”

  Mae and Sunni exchanged a long look: Now you are repaid, Sunni seemed to say.

  Mae pressed her advantage. “Your server is running, but my machine needs permission to download.”

  Sunni nodded once. “Who sent you the message?”

  “Someone who masters privacy. Either Mr. Oz or my friend Mr. Tunch.”

  “We better move, Mr. Haseem, Sunni-ma’am,” said Mr. Wing.

  Mr. Haseem’s leaden face looked up at him, appraising, challenging, but not triumphing. “What will happen to you?” he asked Wing. Haseem regarded himself as a man, and men were serious. The villagers were seriously against the government, as they were against blight on crops.

  Wing’s eyes brows flickered and he gave a brief, buccaneer’s smile. “Inshallah,” he said. Men were also brave.

  “Many thanks, Sunni-ma’am,” said Mae.

  Kwan spoke: “We’d better leave. We have enemies who might say they saw us conspiring.”

  Later, Kwan’s TV spoke: “Permission extended. Uploading begins.”

  They waited, listening to the very faint sounds of moving heads inside the machine. The wind and the future whispered in shadow.

  Kwan was calm. “I could move into the hills. Go visit Suloi’s relatives until all this is past.” She turned to Mr. Wing and smiled. “You could say I became a wild woman and left you.”

  Mr. Wing shrugged. “You are allowed three books in prison,” he said. “The Koran, the Buddhist texts, and the Mathnawi of the Mevlana. I have been saving myself for them. I will do a comparison of all three and learn thereby the truth.”

  “They are long enough for a life sentence,” said Kwan, with grim humor.

  “Then I hope my life will be long enough,” said Wing. “I would prefer a life sentence to death.”

  “Swear,” said Mae, suddenly swept up in superstition. “Swear now that if you are not sent to prison, you will begin to read them now anyway.”

  “I would swear to do that, Mae,” chuckled Wing, “if I thought it would do any good.”

  Mae felt a gathering in her mind as if a tree had sent down roots into it, and then bloomed. She had an idea.

  She asked the television, “Can you do the same thing as that message? Arrive and then disappear?”

  There was a whisper inside. “Huh?” the TV replied. A technical term, meaning it did not understand the request.

  Mr. Wing shook his head. “They would be able to see through such doctoring, Mae.”

  “What I want to do is send the whole site to Bugsy and get her to host it. That way it stays up, but off your machine. So we can wipe it, yes?”

  “Thank you,” said Kwan. “But Bugsy does business with you. That will get you into trouble. And Mae, you do not have the encryption code, so that is that.”

  Mae kept on: “Look, at least wipe the site! Maybe it will be enough for them if you take the site down.”

  Mr. Wing started to rub her back. “Mae, Mae.”

  “I would only put it back up, after they left,” said Kwan. “The world has to know about the Eloi.”

  “So, you’ve had the site up and now the world does know!”

  “Not enough of them.”

  Mr. Wing was smiling with quiet pride. “Mae, Kwan will never give up fighting. She will never rest until justice is done.”

  “Why must it be you who fights?”

  Wing’s smile extended slightly. “Because we cannot let the goons who run this country stop us telling the truth. What are we supposed to do? Run and hide and say, ‘Oh, wondrous masters, we owe you so much for letting us live and battle the land for grain which you take from us as tax’?”

  Mae had never heard such talk. She recognized the constriction around her chest for what it was: fear. This was genuinely dangerous talk.

  “They are destroying an entire people, only because their own ancestors failed to conquer them. The Eloi show it is a lie to say that this country can be called Karzistan, that it is a Muslim country of Turkic peoples. So they try to make the Eloi disappear.”

  Mae felt a little bit sick. She thought she was brave, but she did not have that kind of courage. To face the men who controlled the torturers, the lists, the surveillance, and say: I am going to do the very thing you say I must not do.

  And yet they were right. How were things to get better if no one fought?

  She looked at Mr. Wing and thought: this man could become a terrorist. If there were more of him, my son Lung might be sent to fight him. They might kill each other through a screen of dust and smoke.

  And Mae felt a dull buzz inside the core of her head. The echoing. All this had triggered another attack. “It’s coming on again,” said Mae.

  “The old lady feels the same way?” he said, still looking amused.

  “She has strong memories of the war.…”

  Mae took a grip.

  She began to chant to herself things Mrs. Tung would never believe: Thank heavens for the machines, they give us an ear of the world and then save us from our masters.…

  Something in her head opened up, a bit like a flower, a bit like a radio tuning.

  If this is starting up again, you must hide! If you fight them directly, they send in their soldiers!

  And Mae told it: The government will change itself; its very soul will be blown by the Air.…

  They come and cart you off in the middle of the night, or pay the neighbors to turn on you!

  We will be a world of people beyond governing.…

  Both sides end up eating their dead.

  The rice wine when it came was as transparent as water, but it burned. They sipped in silence. Mae could think of nothing to say.

  From the television came a sound like a rooster, faint and faraway.

  “Mae,” said Kwan. “Something’s coming up on the screen.”

  Words on the screen read, EMAIL/VIDEOMAIL: NO SENDER.

  There was an Egyptian dance of hieroglyphs which suddenly resolved into letters and words and sideways V signs.

  “That’s computer code,” said Kwan.

  Mae sat forward. She knew what it was. Someone had sent her the encryption code. She told the machine to save it, use it, and kept talking to send a message.

  “Audio file to bugsy@nouvelles. Bugsy, sorry to arrive in this way, but this is no laughing matter. Clipped to this message is an entire site. It is ve
ry political, very dangerous, about the Eloi people. The world must know what is happening to them, but it is too dangerous to hold here. Please find a machine other than your own, and put the site up there. Do not—do not—put it on your machine, okay? And never talk of it, and do not reply to this e-mail in any way, okay? Sometimes you will get encrypted message like this. It will be an update for the site. Like this message, it will then eat itself. And please, do not put anything about this in an article! And don’t reply! Your chum. Okay endmail.”

  Mae turned and looked up. “Kwan? Will that be okay? Can we wipe the site, if this works?”

  Kwan hauled in a thick breath through thin nostrils. “Okay,” she whispered, nodding. “Okay.”

  THE SUN ROSE.

  Mae tried to sleep, despite sunshine blazing through the windows.

  Kwan’s warm wine had been a mistake. It burned her stomach. The acids churned like the fear of the soldiers, fear for Kwan, fear of Mrs. Tung, fear of everything. Her stomach was as panicked as her soul.

  And she began to gag. She felt something tear.

  My baby. My strangely nested, new-as-Air, born-from-Air child.

  I’m trying to kill it.

  Her stomach rose up like a fist. She could feel something heavy but alive bunch up and cram against the top of her belly.

  No, no, I don’t need this now!

  Mae saw Mr. Ken’s handsome face. It will be such a beautiful child, she thought. She struggled to pull in a breath. The flesh pushed harder against her esophagus; she felt something gulp open inside her.

  As if Kwan’s wine were fire, a blast of juices burned her throat and seared tender nasal tissues.

  Her child slammed up against her again. Her breath was knocked away.

  No!

  Mae’s face twisted like a rag. She wrenched herself and also something else deep in the world. She twisted and dragged and wrung it. The world felt like silk, ripping in ragged line.

  From all around her came the sound of tiny bells. Was that blood in her ears?

  Mae remembered the fence, the fence she had torn when she escaped Mr. Tunch. The fence had sung when she tore it.

  Sing! she told the air. It did. The air around her crinkled like tin foil.

  And light seemed to come from the singing. Light wavered in patterns on the walls, as if reflecting from water. The light was confused with the thin tinkling sound from nowhere.

  Mae thought of all of them—Tunch, Old Mrs. Tung, Fatimah, the village women. No! You will not take my child from me. Soldiers, armies, people who will not learn, people who hate the future, no you will not get him, my last late Unexpected Flower. He is going to live.

  Mae swallowed, and swallowed again. The room went dark. Mae’s fingers went numb. Mrs. Tung was coming, drawn by the fear.

  Mae felt her arrive. Mrs. Tung seemed to come into the room and sit on the bed next to her.

  The old woman was charmed by the homeliness of babies and indigestion. Old Mrs. Tung offered advice.

  Yogurt is always good for an upset tummy.

  The voice was as kindly and as sweet as pear drops.

  Mrs. Tung had always been kind. Mae remembered her sweet, blind face.

  Yogurt it is, thought Mae, and remembered the tang of it. Yogurt she thought, remembering its creamy sting, and the yogurt sheds with their smell of wood smoke.

  Suddenly the light and the singing smelled of yogurt. The whole room smelled like those old sheds. Mae swallowed again.

  And was soothed. Like a storm at sea when the wind suddenly dropped, the acids in her stomach seemed to calm. They burned no longer.

  Like a barque, clumsy on the waves, the separate flesh inside her settled calmly down into the waters of her stomach. Mae could even feel the foam of the waves.

  Mrs. Tung was smug. The old remedies are always the best. Now I think we should all just get some sleep, don’t you? She seemed to toddle off to bed.

  Everything went still.

  Suddenly Kwan’s attic was just a room, quiet and full of sunshine, a room full of peace, even joy. Mae cradled her stomach. I will build you a safe harbor, little boat. I will fence you in with docks and sea walls. They won’t frighten you out of me. If I have to call on all of Air, you will stay.

  Mae felt her face stretch with a relieved smile. She slept.

  The army did not come. That day.

  MAE STILL HAD TO FIND A PLACE TO WORK.

  She and Sunni had made amends, but Mae would hardly be welcome working on Sunni’s machine day and night as she needed to. And it would be better if the Circle did not operate out of Kwan’s premises. So where, how?

  audio file from: Mrs. Chung Mae

  14 December

  Dear Mr. Oz-sir,

  It is plain that my business has reached the point at which it is necessary to run it from our own machine. The grant has been more than generous, especially as regards our beautiful knitting machine. Would money be available for me to operate a service center of my own?

  audio file from: Mr. Oz Oz

  14 December

  Dear Mrs. Chung-Ma’am,

  It is possible. Form for grant is attached, partially filled in for you, but do not submit it until I can take soundings here. Your course of action is wise.

  Mae scanned the message and pondered its every word for any sign that Mr. Oz had sent the two encrypted mails.

  She decided that he had. The soundings he spoke of were to find out how the government viewed Mae’s controversial connection with the Wings. Mae felt like a traitor to Kwan. “Your course of action is wise,” meant simply that she had done as she was warned, and moved her site.

  Mae stared at the form, filled in completely by Mr. Oz, except for a white box which read: “Reason for Expense / Benefits for Community.”

  She could say that she was running a service center for the whole valley, so more commercial sites could be implanted. She could say that she was offering her own expertise in building sites, and publicizing them.

  In fact, that was not just an excuse. In fact that was a very good idea indeed.

  Mae sat pondering it, seeing it clearly. Mounting sites for Mr. Ali’s car repair, setting up an electronic voting station, providing a link for Mrs. Mack to her Christian church. She saw specifically, Sunni’s Valley Fashion Service. She saw again, the Swallow School, now on the Web itself, giving advice, explaining terms, trading Info with other Net traders.

  She sat staring into another new branch of the future, happy.

  The machine made a noise like a rooster. “You have follow-up message,” said the screen.

  “Mae,” said Mr. Oz in video mode. “My friend, the most amazing thing has happened. Open a second window, and I will transmit.”

  She did so. The window was full of writing in the Roman alphabet and a photograph of the Circle: Kwan, Mae, Sezen, Suloi, Mrs. Doh, Hatijah.

  We look so happy, Mae thought. We look like the kindest people in the world, and the happiest.

  Mr. Genuinely Sincere kept talking: “Mae. It is an article that has appeared in the New York Times, both online and in disk. It is called “Mae’s Story,” and it is by one of your customers—you know her, an editor of a New York magpie. Mae, it is all about your life and how you fight for Info, and how Mrs. Tung was copied into your mind by overhasty Formats. It quotes your friend Mr. Tunch. It quotes you saying you hate the U.N. Format. But Mae! It is a perfect reflection of the government line! How the West must not take us for granted, but must consult on Info. It could not be better. Everyone here is so pleased! They are calling it a diplomatic coup for Karzistan!”

  Mae looked at the photograph of Kwan’s beautiful face. Have I managed, accidentally, to save my friend?

  “Does this mean I get my own machine?” Mae asked.

  Mr. Oz laughed. “I expect so.”

  And suddenly Mae was sure: Oz was not the one who had warned her. He would never be so cunning or so quick. She was relieved she had been so discreet in her mail to him.

 
It was Tunch, she realized, Tunch who had intervened.

  “Let me complete the form and send it to you.”

  And that meant the encryption equations came from Tunch as well.

  That means Tunch watches me, in Air. Guardian angel indeed.

  Oz jerked with pleasure like a colt. Mae thought: Being robbed and thrown in jail by his bosses has not made him older. He will always be a boy.

  He asked her. “You okay on what to say on the form?”

  “I know exactly what I want to do with it, but you advise me, okay?”

  “Okay. You want to save the article? Your machine can read it.”

  Mae paused and reflected. “No,” she said quietly. “I would rather not.”

  He looked a bit perplexed. Then the windows closed. Mae completed her application and sent it to him.

  Then she asked the television to write a proper letter to Sunni.

  My old friend,

  How strange is life. I keep saying that these days, especially thinking over the last few months. Now, here comes something just as strange as everything else that has happened.

  Can I rent my old house from you? Consider: The real value of what you have purchased resides in the land, and there are plenty of farmers hereabouts to whom you can rent the land. That is very good business for you, especially as you do not need to give accommodation as part of the deal. It is pure land rental. So what do you do with the house? Rent it to Mr. Ken for his hens? How much is he going to pay you for a barn?

  Ah, but, Sunni, a workshop for my Circle, now that is a business premise, and you can charge far more for that. And I will have the money to pay, once my machinery arrives.

  I make a proposition to you. I offer 10 riels a month rental. That is in place of given-away accommodation on which you make nothing, or 5 riels a year for a barn—120 riels a year.

  Do we need to talk further?

  And, Sunni, for me the old days are dead, forgotten. Forgiven. My hope now is that you can forgive me the wrongs I did to you.

  Your friend,

  Mae

  Mae sat back and looked at the letter. So, she thought, my battle for the future begins again. I’m doing it for my baby. New song new life.

  17