Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

'Exactly. You are too valuable. I want you home in your village. You know why?'

'Yes,' Mae said meekly. 'You think I am a hero, too.'

Tunch simply gave a thin, satisfied grin.

'How did you tear the fence?' he asked.

Mae told him. 'Air is real and we are not.'

Wisdom nodded once, something confirmed.

Mae told herself what she did not tell him. What they have done is make an artificial soul. You and your Format want to sell our souls back to us. You are about to find out that we have always had them.

They drove on, into the night.

Ling rode with his head out of the window.

Halfway up the hill the dog asked, 'Why are there stars? They don't smell.'

Tunch replied, 'They smell of heat, so fierce it burns away the ability to smell.'

'Are we getting closer to them?' said Ling, looking around.

'Not yet. Not for a good few many years,' said Tunch.

Mae suddenly understood that Tunch intended to stand on the stars, however many centuries it took.

Tunch asked the dog, 'Do you want to know how the universe began?'

'Oh. That would be good to know,' said the dog, looking around.

'Dreadful pride,' said Mae.

Tunch was very pleased with that, and grinned.

'When there is nothingness,' he said, 'gravity does not attract. It becomes repulsive. Ask what those words mean.'

Obediently the dog consulted Air, sweat dripping off his panting tongue. After a moment Ling said, 'Gravity pulls everything together. It makes us heavy so we stay on the ground. Otherwise we would float off to the stars.'

'Good,' said Tunch.

'So, my nose won't burn out.'

'No.'

The dog seemed to grin, panting.

Tunch continued: 'Before anything existed, gravity had nothing to do – except pull apart. It pulled, and nothingness stretched, like a rubber band, until it broke. When it broke there was a burst of light and heat. So energy was created, and out of energy, things were made.'

'So far so good,' said the dog.

'So with something there instead of nothing, gravity then became an attractive force. It pulled together. As the universe exploded, it also pulled and twisted things into shapes. Clouds of gas, then balls of gas, then stars.'

'Is gravity a hero, too?' asked the dog.

'Yes,' said Tunch, pleased.

'How?' asked Mae.

'We know that, mathematically, there must be eleven dimensions. Like height and width, except these other dimensions were not affected by the explosion at the beginning. They are still the same size, coiled at the heart of the universe. Where nothing really changes. Think of the point right at the centre of a wheel. The wheel turns, but the point does not.'

'What's a wheel?' asked Ling.

'We're riding on wheels. Access the mathematical definition of a point.'

'Okay, boss.'

'In those coiled dimensions, we know that the same equations that describe electromagnetism, describe gravity. In the timeless realms outside our universe, they are one. Now, ask again, what is thought?'

Ling had the answer ready. 'An electromagnetic phenomenon. Differences in charges produced by chemical reactions.'

'Gravity is like thought. It has power over everything in this universe, but it is not in this universe. There is no gravity wave, no gravity particle. It exists outside time. It makes things. It loves things. It tears things apart.'

He let the car speak for a while, the roaring of its wheels on the rough surface, the hum of the engine.

'You know what we're going to do, people like you and me, Mae?' Again the disembodied grin, adrift from the sunglasses, lit from underneath now by the dash panel lights. 'We're going to prove God exists. We'll send it messages.'

Mae thought:

I am trapped in a car with a madman who happens to tell the truth. I am trapped in a car with someone driven so crazy by a big opinion of himself that he thinks he will live forever. He thinks he will shake God's hand by machines. The truly awful thing is that he might just do it.

Mae saw clearly that his system was so greedy it would eat anything. Anything she did or said – kick Mr Pakan, befriend Ling, argue with Tunch, or agree – would be wound into his Bronze madness, feed it.

The only thing she could do that would not help him would be to stay silent. Staying silent would prevent him from wanting to know anything more about her. If he felt there was more Info to be derived, he would imprison her again until he had it.

Mae pretended to go to sleep.

The car crackled to a halt over loose gravel.

Mae blinked around her. 'This is it,' she said. She petted Ling. 'Treat him well,' she told Mr Tunch. 'He has been promised steak.'

Ling looked up into her eyes. 'I want this box taken off my head,' he said. 'I want this voice taken out.'

Mae looked at Tunch. Would he?

'We can do that,' Mr Tunch said, and gave Ling's head a casual scratch.

Mae said curtly, 'Thank you for driving me.'

She got out, stepping out of the smell of luxury, leather, and polish. She smelled drains, the little river, and the mud.

'The future will be wonderful, Mae.' He passed her her best dress, covered in hearts.

She simply smiled and nodded, as enigmatically as possible.

'Work towards it,' he told her. And closed the door. Mae waited as the car turned. Ling's nose was pressed against the gap in the window.

'I will be a dog again,' he said.

The car sighed back down the road and was gone. Mae turned and began to walk and realized that her knees were shaking, weak.

He talks of God. So would the Devil.

Mae was halfway up the slope to Kwan's when she realized that the silver shoes were gone.

____________________

e-mail from: Miss Soo Ling

15 September

Of course I remember you, Mrs Chung-ma'am. You were always so appreciative of my work, and so generous in payment. It is good to know I have such good friends back home. I am enjoying my job in Balshang very much. I contribute to designs now, but cutting and sewing are my secret weapons. No one thinks I can, so then I do and people's eyes widen.

You are kind to enquire after Bulent. I am afraid we are no longer together though we are still good chums. We advise each other on how to survive working with all these Foxes and Otters and talk about the Green Valley and all the people we left behind.

Regarding your appreciated offer to purchase my stocks of cloth: The cloth is stored in Yeshibozkent with my mother, Mrs Soo Tung. I have written to her to ask her to arrange the shipping of the cloth via your bank.

Thank you also for the fascinating review of your work under the Taking Wing Initiative. I am not a follower of technology, and you opened new windows for me on this new world. Do stay in touch. Will you be visiting Balshang?

____________________

e-mail from: Lieutenant Chung Lung

6 October

Mrs Chung Mae,

Is my mother really on e-mail? Dad told me that you work on the Wings' machine. My sister is thrilled, too. The army allows us an allocation of personal correspondence. They assume most of us have no e-mail addresses to write to! Please let me know if I have the wrong Mrs Chung.

____________________

audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae

6 October

My son

You cannot know the joy getting your message has given me. You are being so discreet about all that has passed and so sweet not to mention it and so I am even happier to hear from you because no one in the village talks to me and I must talk to people because, Lung, the future is not just coming, it is here now and no one at Kizuldah is ready for it. They are all like quivering mice, trying to pretend there is no hawk, no cat. I have learned many things, my son. I took a Question Map of the village. At first I thought to find out about what clothes people wanted, but I began to ask what they felt about the Test. This is what I learned: They think the Air will be like TV. They do not want to see that it will be in their heads, will change their heads. They just think it will be all football and games. They are frightened of what is coming and that means they will not face up to all they have to learn. I tried to start a school to teach them, Lung, and they came for a while. Then, to stop the school, Shen told your father what I have done. So the school ended. Oh, Lung, I am so sorry for you, and how confused you must be by what has happened. I fell in love, a silly thing for an old woman to do, but I ask you who are still young and can still grab life, to try to understand that when you are old you can suddenly see that there is something you have missed, and that you must have now or get used to never having it. I mean love, Lung. I know how much you respect your father, and how, as an officer in the President's army, you value good behaviour. I behaved badly. Now I am a fallen woman. You know what that means in a little village. Let me know if this is embarrassing, and I will not call again like this. I must go. Oh, I have a business on the Net; look at www.native/fashion/wing.htvl. Give your sister all my love.