Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'Okay, let me take over here,' he said. 'What do you want the money for?'

And Mae told him: To buy modern oatmeal cloth that rich people like, and to pay others to embroider it with Eloi patterns and then tell the West and the Big East that the cloth was a statement about Third World issues. Mr Oz chuckled at that, and looked around at her face.

Then he spoke into the machine, translating what she had told him into official talk. It sounded to Mae like a news item, terribly important, like the way rich people talked about themselves. But it didn't move or excite her.

'That's boring,' she said.

He shrugged. Mae imagined someone at the other end, listening bored to her answers.

And she reached into the patterns, reached into the new glowing links inside her head, and spoke with the knowledge of the Kru, without being the Kru.

'The proposal is to use the power of the Net to extend the reach of local crafts skills to specialist niche markets, most especially America, Singapore, and Japan.'

Mr Oz turned around and blinked at her.

'This will not be traditional direct marketing. Efforts will be focused on information finders of various types, particularly fashion or craft networks…'

He warned her. 'Don't use the word "Eloi." "Traditional local crafts," that's what these are. Do you have a Horseman?'

Horsemen in Karzistan had traded for centuries in the most mobile currency of all: horseflesh. They used their commodity also to bear news, where there were shortages of horses or any other goods. Other traders paid them for such news.

Horsemen, like fashion experts, had always been in the information business.

Now they were people who were paid to sell and sort Info. They were called something else in English, but in Karz, they were called Info Horsemen.

Mr Oz had names and addresses ready. 'You have to give an address for a Horseman. They don't think you've done your homework otherwise.'

He added an official report to her application. It was a separate file attached to her application. His voice validated his identity.

'This is a core project for the Green Valley/Red Mountain area,' he said. 'Its proponent has taken a lead in instructing the village people on the Net and the coming of the Air. She has founded the Swallow School, a project to train locals in Info skills. She has also used a well-constructed Question Map to determine the views of local people on Air. The proposed scheme will demonstrate to this community the value of the Net. It will be the best possible advancement for the aims of both the Yu En Air project and the Central Bureau of Information Technology/Ministry of Development's Joint Declaration of the Taking Wing Initiative.'

Then he sent the form.

'I think we'll get it,' Mr Oz said. 'I cannot imagine a better case.'

He looked calm, sated, knowing how fine it would look on his own record.

So you get something, too. Just as well.

'How do I become an Info Horseman?' Mae asked.

He looked around at her and for once, his eyes were adult. 'You would need to know very much more than you do now,' he replied.

'Can I learn it?'

He sighed. 'You would need to know how wires work. And money. And banking.'

Mae thrust out her chin. 'I have my Kru.'

'And the people – most of all you need to know the people, the people in those worlds. It is not for me to say that you can learn.'

We are who we are.

'Thank you,' she said. The Central Man had said no in a way that she could understand and accept.

'Right,' she said. 'Now, teach me how to make screens.'

Mr Oz crumpled. 'It is late-'

Mae cut him off: 'And I risked my life to come here, and I cannot do it often. You say you want to help, then fine. Help. Helping people costs; you've got to do it when you're tired. Go on! Do your job!'

Mr Oz paused. The muscles in his face worked like biceps. His face seemed to swim up through anger to the placid surface of a smile. 'This is very good for me,' he said. Then he grinned.

'Right. You make screens with something old called html, xml makes it work on TV and aml will even make it work on Air.'

'That means nothing to me.'

'You'll have to learn the words,' said Mr Oz. In the realm of Info, he could command.

The next day Mr Ken came to ask Mae to live with him.

Mae was sweeping Kwan's diwan, the carpets rolled up. The men were already at the television, already there were sports results. A voice behind her said, 'Shouldn't you rest?'

Mae turned and saw Mr Ken. He looked terrible, abject and sleepless.

'Did they say anything to you?' Mae asked jerking her head down towards the landing. Ken Kuei would have had to walk past all the men.

'Some things,' Kuei said.

'I can imagine,' she said. 'When you leave they will ask if your dick is wet.'

'I have come for a serious discussion,' he said.

Kuei's wonderful good behaviour disguised a lack of intelligence. He was diligent, kind, silent, and sympathetic. Just not very bright. Or were all men stupid? Or only the ones she knew?

His ballooning broad shoulders, his round face like a peach, his lips like something soft and chewable. If he were to start on her now, here in the sun-drenched guest room on the swept flagstones, pulling down her trousers, she would dampen, open, admit him.

But no, he wanted a serious discussion.

Mae sniffed. 'Okay. We talk.'

'It is impossible for us to stay in the village,' he said.

'It is impossible for me to go,' she said, very quietly.

He coughed, gently. 'I… propose,' he said. 'That we leave. Together. Take my children with us. We would go wherever you like. But I would suggest Green Valley City.' He looked helpless, proud. 'I would hate Balshang,' he said.

'I want to stay here,' she repeated.

He nodded. 'Okay. Okay,' he said, trying to absorb what she meant. 'I will need to find us a new house. It would not be possible to live so close to Joe.'

'Which house? Whose, Mr Ken? Is there an empty house here? I thought they were all crowded with too many children, and children's children. And oh, such a difference, Mr Ken, to be two minutes away from one's husband. Passing him every day in the fields. Weeding his fields instead of yours by mistake.'

'I know, I know,' Kuei nodded.

'I want this to stop,' Mae said.

'It has not been good,' he admitted. He looked at her, his eyes that wanted to stay a child and that wanted her. 'But it could be good. If we just say, "Yes, it is true, but now we will live together, open." We could do that, and in a year they will get used to it.'

'You don't understand,' she said. 'That night – huh! The night before last, it seems a year ago. That night, as I walked home, I had made up my mind. That this would stop. I decided then.'

She heard the men and their laughter, the birds in the fields, and the very slight noise of the river that flowed right across the heart of the village. She looked into his dark eyes.

'I have been doing too much. I know what I want to do. I have to do just that, if I am to do it at all. And I cannot bear to give up.'

'Info,' he said, almost in scorn.

'This village,' she answered him. 'What your grandmother showed me is that everything dies. It is not good enough just to live. You have to know that death is certain. Not… Not just of the person, but of whole worlds. Ours is going to die. It is dead now. The only thing I can do is help it be reborn, so we can survive.'

Kuei was picking at something on the windowsill next to her. 'Mother to us all,' he said, in some bitterness.

'If it were a different time…' she said.

'If we were younger…' he said.

'If it were as it should be…'

'If we were as we once were…'

He shook himself like a dog, shivered. ' Urggh,' he said, partly in anger, partly in casting anger off. 'Will you go back to Joe?'