Vernor Vinge: Rainbows End

Juan rocked back on his elbows. He was smiling, but enviously. "Yeah. It's the sort of thing Chumlig likes." And then his basic honesty forced him to add, "Lisa and Sandi never bother to polish their graphics, but I heard they've got a buyer for that water filter. I bet they're the only vocational kids who make real money off their demo."

"We're next, kiddo," said Robert.

The only evidence that Juan understood was the way his gaze fixed on their private clock.

Xiu — > Juan: You'll do fine, Juan.

Juan — > Xiu: Is Miri watching?

Juan and Robert were last, the only part of the schedule that was really beyond Chumlig's control. That had not been due to any Juan/Robert cleverness. It had been a consequence of the fact that their demo involved outside groups who had their own scheduling problems.

Juan hesitated a second more. Then he was running out onto the soccer field, waving up a phantom stage parallel to and facing the bleachers. Their performers filed in from both sides of the stage. The imagery was subdued, with no impossibilities. These were real people and real musical instruments, as Juan's magnified voice explained to the audience.

"Hello, hello, hello !" Juan was huckster enthusiastic, and — to Robert's ears — clearly panicked out of his mind. Robert could have handled the emcee role, or they could have recorded this spiel, maybe have had Juan lip-synch it — but that was just another way to lose points with Chumlig. So Juan made do with his live, cracking voice and words that came out with awkward pauses and forced bravado. "Ladies and gentlemen! Meet the Orchestra of the Americas, created especially for you this evening from the Charles River High School orchestra and chorus, cheapnet live from Boston and — " he waved to his left " — the Gimnasio Clasico de Magal-lanes, also cheapnet live but from Punta Arenas, Chile!"

Both sides of the stage were full now, two hundred teenagers in school uniforms of red on the north and checkered green on the south: students who had their own "far cooperation" requirements to satisfy. Altogether they comprised parts of two choruses and two orchestras, seven thousand miles apart, with only cheapnet in between. Persuading them to try this scheme had been a miracle in itself. Success would look mundane to outsiders, yet failure was a real possibility. Well, things didn't go too badly in rehearsal .

"And now — " Juan grabbed for still greater import" — and now, ladies and gentlemen, the Orchestra of the Americas will perform their very own adaptation of Beethoven's EU Anthem, with lyrics by Orozco and Gu, and network synchrony by Gu and Orozco!" He gave a hammy bow and ran back to the sidelines to sit by Robert. Sweat was streaming down his face, and he looked pale.

"You did good, kid," said Robert.

Juan just nodded, shaking.

The hybrid orchestra began to play. Now it was up to these kids and Robert's jitter algorithm. The sounds of cellos and basses rose from the young musicians in Boston and from the other end of the world. The kids' adaptation had a faster beat than the usual EU style. And every note came across hundreds of hops of randomly changing networkery, with delays that could vary by several hundred milliseconds.

There was the same synchronization problem that had made Winnie's choir at the library such a noisy affair.

Juan's lyrics climbed up, the chorus from the north singing his English version, and the one from the south his Spanish. Their student collaborators had created a flexible work with its own conductor interface; that helped some. Plus they were surprisingly good musicians and singers. But the performance still needed the magic of the adaptive delays that Robert's scheme injected into the transmissions (well, okay, and maybe also the far deeper magic that was Beethoven's).

Robert listened. His contribution was not perfect. In fact, this was worse than the rehearsals. Too many people were watching, and too suddenly . He'd been afraid this might happen. The problem was not bandwidth. He glanced at the variance plot he had put in his private view. It showed the presence of several million people suddenly observing, grabbing resources so fast that they confused his poor little prediction program — and changed the nature of what was observed.

And yet, the synch survived. The hybrid did not fragment.

Ten seconds to go. The performance hit some slightly ragged crescen-dos, and then, by some miracle, everything came together for the last two seconds. Juan's lyrics ended, and the central melody swept into silence.

The joint orchestra/chorus looked out at the audience. They were smiling, some perhaps a little embarrassed — but they had brought it off!

There was applause, wildly enthusiastic from some quarters.

Poor Juan looked absolutely drained. Fortunately, he didn't have to venture out on the field to wind things up. The performers were making their bows and trooping to the north and south ends of the stage — back to their respective corners of the world. Juan's smile was a little sickly as he waved to the local audience. His voice came sideways to Robert. "Hey, I don't care what grade it gets. We did it and we're done!"

34

The kids rushed off the bleachers, only slightly impeded by the fact that Chumlig & Co could review the evening and determine just who had been unacceptably bumptious. Juan and Robert were slower, hanging with the other demo students and exchanging congratulations. Grades for the demos wouldn't be available for another twenty hours or so. They would have plenty of time to agonize over their failings. Nevertheless, Louise Chumlig looked quite cheerful, giving each student her congratulations — and deflecting all manner of questions about whether this or that deficit should truly be of any grading significance.

Still no sign of Miri or Bob. Robert's attention was filled with the kids and Chumlig and Juan Orozco — this last person alternating between hysterical relief and the conviction of failure.

So it was without forewarning that Robert found himself face-to-face — almost nose-to-nose — with Winston Blount. Behind the former dean, Tommie Parker was standing hand-in-hand with Xiu Xiang. Now, that was surely the strangest pairing to come out of this adventure! The little guy was grinning ear-to-ear. He flashed a thumbs-up at Robert.

But for the moment, Blount had all his attention. Robert had seen little of Tommie and Winnie since that night at UCSD. They and Carlos had spent several days at Crick's Clinic. As far as Robert could tell, certain deals had been made, much as in his own case. And now they were loose. The official story was just what Bob had said: The cabal activity had been a protest that got out of hand, but they had never intended to damage laboratory equipment and they were all terribly sorry for that. The unofficial tales of heroic sacrifice helped explain why the university and the bio labs seemed happy not to pursue the matter. If the Elder Cabal kept its collective mouth shut, there would be no Consequences.

Just now there was an odd smile on Winnie's face. He nodded to Juan and reached out to shake Robert's hand. "Even though I've dropped out of Fairmont, I still I have family here. Doris Schley is my great-grandniece."

"Oh! She did well, Winston!"

"Thank you, thank you. And you — Winnie hesitated. In years past, praise for Robert Gu came from all quarters and it had often been used as a club to beat down Winston Blount. " — you wrote something wonderful there, Robert. Those lyrics. I would never have imagined such a thing riding on Beethoven and in English and Spanish. It was… art." He shrugged, as if waiting for a sarcastic putdown.