Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'What did you find out?' he asked quietly.

'That the village has died,' Mae said, equally quietly.

Mae realized that she had been hearing a clock ticking for some time. What clock, where?

'How do you mean?' he asked.

'I mean… I mean our children will become like children everywhere else. They will play computer games and learn everything and the very last of the old ways will go. Absolutely everything we know and love will go. They will have supermarkets here, and streetlights, and the men will drive Fords, not vans or tractors.'

Mae looked around Kwan's room. There definitely was no clock. But it ticked.

Mae heard the sirens again. She turned slowly and looked and saw that outside Kwan's window the air was full of orange light as if their village life were burning. She knew she was staring at the future again. She stood and walked, as if on a ship at sea, and stared out from Kwan's high window.

There was a blimp with neon lights advertising an electronic address, tethered to the courtyard gate. There were tables full of people in the courtyard. This house was now a restaurant. The streetlights were yellow and they fell far away, all across the valley and up the other side, and there were moving lights of cars all over the valley, and drifting music, from everywhere.

'Mae?' Kwan's voice was anxious. 'Mae!' Her hand was on Mae's shoulder.

Mae started to speak, in a voice that was not entirely her own. It was partly Old Mrs Tung's.

'All the old songs,' she said, 'and the old good manners – all that will go.'

From down below, in the restaurant, a drunk laughed loudly.

'We used to work all together in Circles, and take turns to bring the lunches, and all of us who could read, we'd recite the poems for the ladies. Not… not pop songs… not some song in English, but our own great, great poetry, words that had meaning. We would read the Mevlana.'

And Mae or Mrs Tung or someone started to cry. '"Listen to the reed, how it tells a tale…"'

'Mae, Mae!' Kwan was saying over and over. 'Mae, come back.'

'We made our own clothes, we smoked our own tobacco, we didn't worry about hairspray and makeup. What counted was how strong a woman was, how much she could lift. In winter, wives cooked in teams, one set of wives making the soup all day, another set of wives making the goulash all day, everybody ate, no one was lonesome. On the first day, the Muerain would call on God and give us wisdom, and the next day the priest in his robes would bless the food, and on the third day, the Communist read from his little red book. And in Kizuldah all three were the same man!'

Mae watched her hands wringing a tea towel over and over. 'And we're destroying it! We have to destroy it to live!'

Kwan was speaking quietly, but she was turned towards the Central Man. 'You asked me if anyone else died during the Test. Mae did. She was in someone else's head and they died, and Mae came back a different person. She gets like this, she joins the dead, she loses herself. She was always so beautiful. Your Test did that to my friend. I'm very angry at your Test. I'm very angry at all you people.'

And Mae saw on Kwan's stern face a single, slow tear.

The Central Man sat with a hand covering his mouth.

Was that true, what Kwan had said? Was she – Mae – in that condition?

'I'm sorry,' the Central Man managed to whisper.

'Huh,' said Kwan. A lot of use that is.

The noise from the restaurant below faded. This room became clearer, as if someone had turned on many extra lights.

Mae decided something. 'I will let you see my Question Map,' she said.

Back in Mae's house, Mr Oz read the Question Map, shaking his head over and over.

Mae said, 'I will let you have it to take away, if you tell me everything you know about Air.'

Mr Oz read the Question Map, shaking his head over and over.

Mae kept on: 'Yu En. Gates. All that stuff.'

He looked up at her. 'How?' he said. 'The quantitative data has been entered into a spreadsheet and computed. The qualitative material… How did you know how to do this? This is a structured piece of research.'

'In Air. There is a Kru in Air.'

The Central Man went very still indeed. 'You go back into Air? You are not supposed to be able to do that.'

'When… I had my accident. To get out, I made myself an Airmail address.'

'How did you do that?'

'It's my name.'

'They're not still Aircasting,' he said, perplexed.

'The Kru is still there.'

'He shouldn't be. He's copyright, he agreed to do it only for the Test.' His mouth did its downward twist.

'You people,' said Mae, 'you don't really know what Air is, do you?'

'You're right,' said the Central Man. 'We don't.'

He explained. The Kru was a great businessman, a rival of the company that made the Gates Format. He had donated his expertise as a demonstration for the Test of the Yu En Format. The deal wasn't that he would go on forever, giving away everything he knew for free. Everyone had assumed it would end with the Test.

'Mrs Tung is always with me,' said Mae.

Mr Oz left, going across the courtyard. Mae heard Old Mrs Ken greet him with all the gusto that five riels a night could purchase. Mae smelt chicken cooking for the generous guest. She sat down and wondered if Kuei would be able to visit her now, with all of his house in an uproar.

I am like someone in mourning.

Of course you are in mourning, said Old Mrs Tung.

It was a dull, kind voice.

We all want an anchor, we all want to turn the corner to go home. But home always goes away. Home leaves us. And we get older and then older again, and farther away from home. From ourselves. We die before we die, my dear. We go from village beauties to old crones; from mischievous children to weary adults; from ripe maidens full of love to embittered, used women full of bile. And all we have is love. With nothing to love, just the love, aching out, reaching out and never clasping love in return.

Just the reeds, just the swallows, just the mist in the air, the sunlight in the air, just the sound of the wind. That never changes. That is all the home we have.

Dear Old Mrs Tung.

Sleep, my dear.

For all the beauty we have lost, and all the beauty we will lose.

The next morning Mr Oz and Mae found two groups of armed men in Mrs Wing's courtyard.

On one side were Mr Shen, Mr Koi, and Mr Masud. They were all either Eloi or old-fashioned Muslims.

Against them stood Mr Mack, Mr Pin, Mr Ali, and Old Mr Doh.

Shen said, 'We are bringing this to a stop.'

Mae read the two sides: Mr Ali was of Sunni's party. He was here to help save Kwan's machine. An alliance against Shen, so quickly? Mr Ali had brought his own gun: that would mean Shen had already threatened Mr Haseem. There was a clicking sound. Lean, brown, hard, Mr Wing stood on his steps. He held a Russian rifle with the hammer pulled back. He said, 'That does not belong to you, Shen.' From out behind him stepped Enver Atakoloo. He also had a gun.

Mae stepped forward and gave both parties a bow of respect. She said quietly, to Shen, 'Bring what to a stop, Teacher?'

Shen pointed at the TV. 'We don't want that in our village.'

'I am sure it is for you men to decide,' Mae said, sweetly. Like a cat with humans, she had a voice she only ever used with men. 'But, Teacher. Consider. You won't be able to keep out the Air when it comes.'

The Central Man felt the time had come for him to intervene with his full authority. 'Mrs Chung is right. The TV will help you prepare for April.'

Mae wanted to smile at him and weep at the same time. Poor boy, this is happening because you have arrived. You will be invisible to them, like an angel. Untouchable, but also invisible.