Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

Mae saw one, all lines of writing on paper, in English. Someone else's memories.

You find people who are like the people you want to know about. Normally that's so tough you need scientists to help you, but in this case you can actually ask all the people. That's a one hundred per cent sample. Just make sure you really have got them all.

Mae saw a series of black balls in a column. This was a list, a way of remembering, called 'Dos and Don'ts.' She saw a name, too, and knew it was the name of the person in her head, and she caught a word.

This was Kru. Kru in her own language meant 'a great teacher.' This was a Kru word for something she couldn't pronounce but which got turned into 'Mat Unrolling' in Karzistani. 'Mat Unrolling' is what a trader did in the square; they unrolled a mat, laid out their radishes. Mae liked that. It sounded real.

Don't ask leading questions, and that means, a question that puts an idea into people's heads that they might not have had. Don't ask questions that can be answered yes or no. Ask the same question two or three times in different ways to see if you get the same answers…

Hold, hold how can I remember this?

The flow of knowledge stumbled. Who said that? someone, somewhere, seemed to ask.

The overcoming spirit was frightened.

What's in my head? it seemed to ask.

Nothing, nothing, said Mae, and went still and small. She started thinking in this new train again. How it rattled along this train of thought. Knowledge came intimately as if it were her own. The thoughts felt close and personal.

The thing was eager to share. It felt its life had been vindicated by doing this one great thing. Mae began to see a tiny old white man with bright and shining eyes.

So. They are somehow able to copy Krus, give us Krus in our heads. This Kru was a great and good Mat Unrolling Kru, so great and good that he could afford to give his head for nothing. He gives his wisdom as from Heaven, to help, because he feels pity.

There is a word for that: bodhisattva.

So where else would you expect to find an emanation of the Buddha but in Heaven? But never, never, would you expect the great gift of wisdom to enter you as if from a balloon in reverse, as if the balloon was pumping you up, filling you with air.

This was a very great gift indeed. Mae felt her wide grin and she felt her solid body press both hands together in respect.

And she also had one wicked thought. I have an address. No one else in Kizuldah does.

Mae sat under another desert mountain sky. She sat with hands kept pressed in respect and learned all she could about Question Maps and unrolling her mat.

The stars turned slowly. Mae grew tired, before that bright, enduring, unchanging mind. Somewhere her giant body dipped in respectful farewell. Mae's spirit went back the way she had come. She recited.

'Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae, Mae…'

She felt a wind blow and scatter her and spin her. She seemed to spin dancing back into the solid world.

Mae found herself sitting next to the dead and useless mechanical box. Her eyes were wide and streaming with water as if she were weeping from joy. She had not blinked all the time she was in Air.

And she stood up, and she strode forward, and she knew what she would do.

She would make a Question Map and ask all the women in the village what they wanted and that would be what she would make. And she would be one with the Kru to understand how the magic of money really worked, for it seemed clear now that money had come from the gods, was an aspect of them. Until it had been stolen by kings and presidents. Coins should bear the image of the Buddha.

And she would go back and learn more. If the Net were all about greed and gouging then she would learn how to use it to unroll her mat. She would be among the ones who won in this life, through work and virtue.

Air was new, Air was strong, Air would bear her up. She felt the long root go back and she knew now. She was rooted in the world but the world was in rooted in Air.

Mae walked back down Lower Street just before threeA.M. She was looking down at her feet, in the moonlight, to avoid stumbling on the old cobbles.

Something happened inside her eyes. It seemed as if the surface of the road swelled up flickering. She felt herself swell, grow larger, but more diffuse, as mist.

Suddenly the road was paved, with yellow light reflected from its smooth asphalt surface.

Mae looked up to see a street lamp, towering over Lower Street on a high concrete pole. When had there been a streetlight on Lower Street? Or a concrete pole?

Mae looked around and saw the town, spilling down the hillside like a necklace, all strings and spangles of light.

Below, in the valley where once there had been a marsh, a neon sign glowed: hotel nearness, it said. Next to it was some kind of shop, blazing out blue fluorescent light over its own whitewashed wall and the road. A bright red awning hid the things in its window. Children yelled somewhere, running. Children stayed in the village these days. Why leave? All the world was here now. Because of Air, the children stayed. Mae saw her great-grandchildren every day.

Where am I? Where is this?

The air smelled of car exhaust and was full of noise: televisions, back-firing cars, and an ambulance siren.

Mae was old and irritated by a bad back and she was thinking: This is where it was: this is where my house once stood. My house with Joe.

Climbing up this steep hill had cost her. She had fallen months before and her back was still not right. She still tried to walk in a sprightly way, though crumpled, stiff and sore.

It was here, old Mae thought, here that we met, here it all happened. Here I was reborn.

A wind rose, carrying with it the sound of blown reeds. The wind seemed to lift Mae up with it.

Mr Ken stood waiting in the courtyard gate.

And the old woman saw Mr Ken. To her, he was a ghost from the past. Old Mae choked, put a hand to her mouth. Everything: heart, eyes, gorge, seemed to swell with panic and love.

There he was, her Mr Ken. He wore a sweatshirt – she remembered it now clear as day – and his good trousers with the spandex band instead of a belt.

The wind blew stronger. The sense of panic and loss were taken with it, along with the streetlights.

And Mae collapsed, not like dust settling, but like a house of cards all at once. And it seemed she pulled the world with her. It had all fallen back into place as she knew it.

What? Mae thought. What was that? She clamped a hand to her forehead. It was a gust of madness.

Air, thought Mae.

Air goes into the future as well?

She looked about her. There was no Hotel Nearness. The hills were dark; the rural streets were silent.

Maybe, she thought, maybe I should not go into Air too often.

Mr Ken put a hand to his lips, and paused, questioning, to give her a chance to refuse.

Mae's response was simply to walk towards the valley. He followed. There were no listening lights at three in the morning.

The wind in the reeds was like the sound of a waterfall, like everything tumbling out of her head. They walked in silence. Just outside the village, in the sound of the wind, he felt safe to speak.

'I thought you might not come,' he said. 'Your house was dark. Where have you been?'

'In the future,' she heard herself say. She thought, and then confirmed it: 'I've been into the future.'

'Watching television?'

Mae felt distant. Maybe she was just tired. She shook her head. She didn't want him to talk. She wanted to listen to the world, the wind, and the moon. She could hear the moon move through clouds.