Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'So how could it happen?' Mae's voice was raised.

Fatimah's deep-brown eyes kept staring down into hers, as if to offer her a stable place. 'Pregnancies can take root anywhere in the body, once the egg has been kissed. The question is, how would an egg and the male part meet in your stomach?'

And Mae knew how. 'Ilahe Illallah,' she gasped, though nominally a Buddhist, and covered her mouth. She had swallowed Ken; she had swallowed her own menstrual blood. She felt like a flurry of scarves, all fears and horrors. She was stripped and bare, her sexuality exposed, her private secret bedroom found to have one wall missing. The whole village could look in. Scientists peered over Mr Ken's shoulder, prying into her strange habits.

'Has this ever happened before?' Mae whispered.

Fatimah shrugged. 'If it has, it would miscarry by now.'

'What will happen?' Mae was following the consequences of this monstrosity. Birth through the throat? Surgery?

'The child cannot be healthy,' said Fatimah. 'As for birth, it should be by surgery, but I cannot recommend that. We… We can help you quietly, telling no one…' Her voice trailed away, a warm hand on Mae's chilled arm.

In the raw villages of Karzistan, unwanted winter babies were left to crystallize in the snows. Third daughters were whisked away and dispatched before the mother could see them and love them.

Fatimah seemed alarmed by something. Her voice was still low. 'There can be no question of your keeping it.'

Mae felt as though she were clutching a cloth over herself to hide naked breasts.

If the village knew this, what would they do? She was already a monster for simply falling out of marriage. A woman who talked too much and then gave birth to a monster through her mouth? They might drive her away with stones.

'You must understand. The stomach is full of strong acid. To dissolve food? We don't know what that will do to the child.'

Mae was seeing Mr Ken's face. Her young man… Young? Either one of them?

Yes, at heart they were young. At heart and in memory, they would always be in school together, longing and shy. They would always be the lovers who found each other late in life.

That heart and memory would only be as real as long as they lived. But if there were a child, that meant that love would outlive both of them.

And that was what love was for, all the waste and the pain and the inconvenience and the awkwardness and the ugliness. It was to draw together and build an island of love, in which children could grow, and love can be passed on.

'Mae? Mae you cannot be thinking…'

Mae was thinking of redemption. In Karz the phrase for it was 'Unexpected Flower.' It was seen as late Indian summer, surprising the world with roses. My Unexpected Flower, she called the child. The machines were silent and blue around them.

'I need to think,' was all that Mae could say.

'You won't be given much of a chance for that, said Fatimah.

The rest of the afternoon session consisted of qualitative research. Mae was introduced to a bald, eager stranger with spectacles. This is Mr Pakansir, he will ask you questions. Hello, Mrs Chung-ma'am. Please answer the questions quickly, no need for deep consideration.

The name Pakan meant 'Real Man.' Mae sat, legs crossed, arms crossed trying to find cover. The questions began easily enough: occupation… marriage… was she a happy woman? How did things change after Formatting? After the Test, how did things change?

'Would you say that your sexual habits changed after Formatting?'

'No,' said Mae.

'But… uh… you are pregnant. In an unusual way.'

'No one knows how such a thing is possible,' replied Mae.

'We understand, however, that your marriage broke down.'

Mae sat silent.

'Is that true? You have just said that you were happily married. How did it become unhappy?'

Mae smiled silently.

Mr Real Man's grin went a bit fierce. 'Mr Tunch has said to remind you, perhaps, of your bargain. That you will help us understand, in return for training. Your mind was interfered with by the UN Format. We are trying to understand what happened. To help others.'

Mr Real Man went back to his sheet of papers. They were printed, but not entirely square on the paper. 'Did you find yourself performing sexual acts that were not part of your previous repertoire?'

Silence.

'Please, Mrs Chung. These are medical questions.'

Poor man. You do not know who you are dealing with, thought Mae.

'Had you ever heard of or known about oral sex before the Formatting?'

Mae couldn't help but answer, 'How on earth do you think peasant women avoid being pregnant all the time?'

He looked disappointed. 'Oh. So you knew about sex with the mouth before the Formatting. There is no chance that the Formatting planted the idea?'

Mae did not answer. Her heart was growing as tight as her masklike little smile.

'Was it something that you practised frequently?'

Mr Pakan slouched forward, groin thrust out. Unconsciously he began to rock back and forth as if having sex with the tip of his long tie. Mae stood up, thinking of Mr Haseem, and kicked Mr Real Man between the legs.

He groaned and doubled over. She struck him in the face. His glasses slipped lopsided, and he slumped forward on his knees. He crawled out of the room. Mae kicked him on the bottom and sent him sprawling over the polished padded floor outside the room and then she slammed the door behind him.

She waited, her breath quivering as though it were fire.

She was not an ignorant peasant or some farm animal made to reproduce as they wished. They were going to have to learn to treat her as a person of consequence.

Mr Tunch came early. He looked amused. 'You are confirming important data for us.'

'Am I really?' said Mae. She felt as though her teeth had been filed into a saw.

'You were not violent before the Formatting, were you?'

Mae paused. 'I never met such bastards until the Formatting.'

Mr Tunch was still smiling. He was amused. 'I wish I could have seen it – poor old Mr Real Man. Asking his neat little machine questions, and meeting Real Life by mistake.'

Mae was unmoved, unfooled. 'He was doing your bidding.'

'Are you going to hit me?' Tunch asked in mock alarm.

Mae considered. 'I might kill you if you go too far.'

Even Mr Tunch blinked. 'Oh,' he said, darkening.

'I am a direct person. Are you going to blame that on the UN as well?' Mae batted her eyelashes at him.

It was his turn to grin, masklike.

Mae sat back, feeling hearty, like she was surrounded by friends and picking on an enemy. 'That's why you do this, Mr Tunch. You want to sell the Gates Format. You have to say the UN Format is bad. It is bad because it gives away too much to people like me. Is the Gates Format paying you?'

Mr Tunch closed his eyes and his smile went gentler, amused, and rueful. He looked at her in something like affection and said, 'Unexpected Flower.'

Mae felt a chill. Just how much had Mr Wisdom Bronze penetrated, with his machines and Question Maps?

He sighed. 'Whenever I despair for our people and think there is no hope, with the ignorance, the poverty, the deep divisions, the lack of resources, someone like you surprises me, and I know, I know Karzistan could take on the world.'

The two looked at each other, both surprised.

'You are very damaged, you know,' he added.

You want to rifle through the pages of my life, hold my underwear in the sun to show stains.

Mae gathered herself up and asked brightly, 'Did you make the money for all of this from drugs?'

His face hung suspended.

She shrugged. 'Look, you can't shock me. A wise man makes money where he can. You are not from Yeshibozkent. I can tell that from your accent. You are from far down the valley, where soil, sun, everything is hard. The poppies grow there.'