Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'I am setting up a school,' said Mae.

Kwan was still laughing. 'What, tonight?'

'Yes, tonight. I feel like the whole village will be swept away unless we do something now. Come and see.'

Images of the five pens swam up onto the screen. Kwan came up behind her.

'I made these. There are the five pens that Air sets up in your mind. I will make the TV imitate Air and I will show people how to use them, what they will be able to do. What do you think?'

Kwan was quiet. 'That will be a good thing to do.'

'I will call in everyone. I will call in people during those times when they are not busy. I will ask men to come just after breakfast, I will ask women to come after lunch.'

Kwan started to chuckle again. 'You just thought of this.'

'I have been slow,' said Mae. 'We all have to learn, Kwan. Or Air will come and it will use us, not the other way around.' What she felt was akin to panic. What she felt was akin to flying.

'Audio. Poster. Pictures,' she ordered. 'Birds. Swallows. Blue on white.' The words flew onto the screen as if they were swallows. The screen said for her under the silhouette of a bird.

'We have the school here, ah? Okay?'

Kwan nodded yes.

Mae's words became a poster.

____________________

SWALLOW SCHOOL

BE LIKE A SWALLOW

LEARN TO FLY IN THE AIR

Mrs Chung Mae has been deep into Air. She has been learning a lot about how the TV works. She wants her friends to know it, too. She will show how Air will work by giving lessons on my television for free.

• Men come just after breakfast.

• Women come just after lunch.

• Rowdy unruly young pests come after school and not before.

Mrs Wing Kwan

(Lady Sunni-ma 'am. You do not need a letter writer and a printer to make a leaflet. Mae will do one for you.)

____________________

Kwan was, by now, laughing aloud.

'Print,' said Mae, 'thirty-three copies.' Two copies were lined up side by side on one sheet of paper.

There was a whirring sound, and Kwan eased the paper out of her machine.

'Mae,' she said, reading. 'You are a miracle.' Mae felt triumph.

The only man to show up at Mae's first lesson was Mr Ken.

He sat quiet and patient and brought no one else with him. He was not a leader of the village. 'There is no need to do this just for me,' he said.

'I need to practise,' said Mae.

Alone, in front of someone who accepted her, she spoke from the heart.

'We should all be grateful to Mr Wing who brought us this machine just in time. Finally we can see TV. But not just TV, not just kung fu, ah, but Info. This is what the rest of the world has had since they were born. This is what they know like we know how to breathe. Now, this is where Air starts from. Air thinks everyone knows this. If we don't know it, we get nowhere in Air. And if we get nowhere in Air, we will be as far behind the rest of the world as apes are from us.

'You won't believe what Air does. In Air, they don't just give you TV shows. In Air Krus come and give you their whole head. Their wisdom enters you; you can use it like it was your own brain. In Air, children will become wiser than adults. They will have parts of wise adults in their heads. I know this because I have shared this. I have had a great Kru in my head, telling me about Mat Unrolling.

'In New York people are already sharing their wisdom, their dreams in one pool. It becomes like another person that everyone can use. They call this Collabo. They have Collabo clubs, where everyone dances to everyone else's music. All of this, all of this will be on us next year. And half of us have never made a telephone call! That is why we must move. That is why we must learn now!'

Her hand had become a fist, and she shook it. Mr Ken sat in his chair as if it were accelerating too quickly.

Sunni came to Mae's first afternoon lesson. She wore a black gown with gold leaf, and a floating chiffon scarf, and she was pink and white, and her hair was in a glossy sweep. Her nails were painted, her shoes were white.

She made Mae look as if she had come direct from the fields. Who was more of a fashion expert now?

Sunni's face was a mask of a smile, and she gazed at each of the women, and gave them a nod.

'I assume it is all right for me to come as well, Mrs Wing-ma'am.' She did not even look at Mae.

Kwan smiled and said that all were welcome. 'Mae is doing helpful work for all of us.'

Sunni sauntered among the rows of cushions, nodding gracefully to each of the women. 'I will be round later with the fabric I promised you.' She folded herself neatly onto a cushion and sat next to her ally, Mrs Ali. Elegant, dignified, they gazed about them as if from a great height.

Sezen showed up with her boyfriend, to whom Mae took an instant dislike. His face was frozen into a sneer and there was a tattoo on his neck. Mae had Sezen's notebook ready to give back to her. 'I'll talk to you about it later,' said Mae, and Sezen, for no very good reason, turned to her boyfriend with her mouth open as if aghast at bad behaviour.

More women came in clumps of friends, chattering and laughing. Mrs Mack came alone. All the Pins came together. Mae's sister Soong Se came with Ju-mei's wife, who had been born a Soong. As they arrived, misgiving-doubts overtook Mae. Could she really talk to so many people?

Mae was torn between different impulses: one towards elegance, one towards directness.

'Hello. I am very pleased to see you all here.'

The women murmured hello back. Exactly as if they were in school and Mae was teacher. This surprised her, made her shy, made her retreat into peasant bluntness.

She tried to start as she had started with Mr Ken, but it came out muted and flat. 'When we go on Air, this is what they all know. So we need to know it too, to keep up with them, okay?'

The TV would not go on. Mae realized that the TV had always been on when she arrived. Here she was, a teacher, and she could not switch it on.

'It's asleep,' said Kwan. The ladies laughed, not knowing that it was an actual word.

'Wake,' said Mae, shyly.

Up came the five pens of Air.

Mae felt Sunni behind her, looking for every mistake. 'What the Test did is change everybody's mind. It made the inside of your head look like the inside of a TV.'

Mae was taken aback when the women laughed again. 'So. You have these five pens inside your head now. Air imitates TV. So learning how to use the TV will help learning how to use the Air.'

'I use it to breathe,' said Mrs Ali. She was looking in a conspiratorial way at Mrs Sunni-ma'am. More chuckles.

They wanted this to be jolly, like a ladies' tea party. Mae found she was too shy in front of so many people to be relaxed enough for that. She was exposed to an enemy who had perhaps brought allies.

'Now you will also use it to think,' Mae said to Mrs Ali. It sounded like a rebuke. Sezen's boyfriend gave an ugly squawk, and he whispered something rude that made Sezen giggle and hiss at him to be quiet. Sunni's eyes were on Mrs Ali, and very slightly she shook her head.

Mae pointed to the screen, which was showing the familiar Air Format. 'You will see that you already know how Air works.'

'Oh good, we can go now,' said Sezen's boyfriend. Sezen hid her mouth and laughed.

'Each of these four areas contains different things. The section called "Help" is the one we cover today, because this is where information about "Info" is kept. Open "Help." '

Up came a list of options. Mae could not read it, but she knew it by heart. 'This shows all the things the television can do, how to make the TV work, how to find things that we want to know, what to do when things do not work.'