Geoff Ryman - Air (or Have Not Have)

I am good at learning. And good at waiting. Your friend, Mr Ken Kuei

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e-mail from: Miss Soo Ling

13 December

Mae,

I hear that many houses here are imitating your success, selling collars, etc. In

any case, all fashions come and go. Have you been thinking what you will do next? There is a Western phrase used by all: Live the change. It means, 'Get in first and get out first.'

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e-mail/videomail: no sender

They have found the Eloi site. They will raid. Get your business off Kwan's machine now. Move it onto Mr Haseem's if you can – now, tonight – but move it in any case.

Who would send her such a message?

Mae's mind raced as her slippered feet slid in the dark on Kwan's polished wooden floors. Mr Oz? Hikmet Tunch?

She went into Kwan's bedroom and smelled the savour of husband and wife and sleep.

'Kwan,' she whispered. 'Kwan, wake up.'

There was a groan.

'Kwan, please, this is urgent, it must be done. Please wake up.'

The movement, the sound, ceased and a calm, alert voice said: 'What is it, Mae?'

'I just got an audio file. Came on looking like a packet from America, only it was just a scramble of, you know, symbols. Then it started to wake up as words. It said it was a self-decoding cipher. So whoever sent it would have to know the watermark on your hard disk.'

'What did it say?'

'That they know about the Eloi home, that they will raid. It said, "Get your business off Kwan's machine." '

'Can I see the message?'

'No, it burned itself up.'

There was quiet. Outside, a nightjar was singing.

Mr Wing spoke next: 'If they know about the minority site, there is not much point removing it now,' he said, with the same cool voice he used when repairing plumbing. 'What does it say, Kwan?'

'It tells what is being done to my people,' said Kwan.

Wing breathed heavily, once, in and out. 'You are a woman. Perhaps they will treat you gently. Pretend you are foolish and emotional. Mae, whoever your friend is, they are clever, and you must upload all your data to Sunni's machine, and wipe it from ours.'

'Do you know how to do that?'

'Not if you don't.'

The TV was now kept in the diwan. Already secretive, they did not turn on the lights, but huddled in quilted coats around the screen.

Mae tried to copy her business onto Sunni's machine. She kept repeating different, likely instructions. Finally she found one that worked.

The TV said, 'Making contact with htvl/sunni/takingwing.htvl.'

Mae told it, 'Volume down! Can you make it look as if the files have always been on her machine?'

The TV made noises like mice were at work inside it. Then it murmured, 7 can make it look as if your site has an alias on htvl/sunni.'

Mr Wing told Mae, 'Do that. You can say you had it on two machines in case one of them went down.'

'Okay, go ahead,' said Mae. The machine made nibbling noises as if mice were at work. Mae turned to Kwan. 'After this, we wipe the Eloi site.'

'The site stays up,' said Kwan.

Mae protested. 'Kwan! The site will be wiped anyway. But perhaps if it's not here when they arrive, we can have some story ready!'

Kwan's face shone as white and cold as the moon. 'It is too late, Mae. I have e-mail from professors about the site; I have answered them. If the government are reading my e-mail, they will have all that, too. They have me, Mae.'

The two women stared at each other in silence. Blows are like this, thought Mae. At first you are dazed and do not feel the pain. Mae found she was listening for the stealthy rumble of an army truck.

The TV murmured low: 'Permission denied.'

'Mae,' said Mr Wing, 'let's at least save your business. We'd better go and ask Sunni for permission now.'

'Right, okay, I do that. But both of you go, get away!'

'Where to, Mae?' demanded Kwan. 'You think we should hide?'

'We'll take care of ourselves, but first we will go with you,' said Mr Wing. 'Mr Haseem may not talk to you.'

They threw stones against Mr Haseem's shutters to wake him. He threw the window open and they heard the click of a safety catch. Mr Haseem had a gun.

Mr Haseem rumbled, 'Get away from my house, Mae. I bough: your husband's place fairly.'

'Of course you did,' Wing intervened. 'This is trouble with the government. Let us in, Faysal.'

They were allowed only as far as the kitchen. Sunni automatically bowed to Kwan, sleepily mistaking this for a social call.

'The government has found our Eloi site,' said Kwan.

Mr Haseem looked unmoved. That was their problem, raising stuff like that. Sunni looked alert, and watchful.

Mae spoke: 'I need to copy my business site onto your machine.'

'Tuh!' said Haseem. 'After all that has passed between us?' His heavy face assumed its most natural expression of scorn.

And Sunni? Her eyes met Mae's and something passed between them. Sunni turned to her husband and shrugged. 'It will cost us nothing. And Mae told us about the wire charges and saved us much money. It is a simple favour to return.'

'I don't want trouble with the government,' grunted Haseem.

'Have you seen Mae's screens? She has a link to one government office, and another government office, and there is a part on it in which Mae sings gratitude to the government. Having such a site on our machine will be protection against the government.'

Mae and Sunni exchanged a long look: Now you are repaid, Sunni seemed to say.

Mae pressed her advantage. 'Your server is running, but my machine needs permission to download.'

Sunni nodded once. 'Who sent you the message?'

'Someone who masters privacy. Either Mr Oz or my friend Mr Tunch.'

'We better move, Mr Haseem, Sunni-ma'am,' said Mr Wing.

Mr Haseem's leaden face looked up at him, appraising, challenging, but not triumphing. 'What will happen to you?' he asked Wing. Haseem regarded himself as a man, and men were serious. The villagers were seriously against the government, as they were against blight on crops.

Wing's eyes brows flickered and he gave a brief, buccaneer's smile. 'Inshallah,' he said. Men were also brave.

'Many thanks, Sunni-ma'am,' said Mae.

Kwan spoke: 'We'd better leave. We have enemies who might say they saw us conspiring.'

Later, Kwan's TV spoke: 'Permission extended. Uploading begins.'

They waited, listening to the very faint sounds of moving heads inside the machine. The wind and the future whispered in shadow.

Kwan was calm. 'I could move into the hills. Go visit Suloi's relatives until all this is past.' She turned to Mr Wing and smiled. 'You could say I became a wild woman and left you.'

Mr Wing shrugged. 'You are allowed three books in prison,' he said. 'The Koran, the Buddhist texts, and the Mathnawi of the Mevlana. I have been saving myself for them. I will do a comparison of all three and learn thereby the truth.'

'They are long enough for a life sentence,' said Kwan, with grim humour.

'Then I hope my life will be long enough,' said Wing. 'I would prefer a life sentence to death.'

'Swear,' said Mae, suddenly swept up in superstition. 'Swear now that if you are not sent to prison, you will begin to read them now anyway.'

'I would swear to do that, Mae,' chuckled Wing, 'if I thought it would do any good.'

Mae felt a gathering in her mind as if a tree had sent down roots into it, and then bloomed. She had an idea.

She asked the television, 'Can you do the same thing as that message? Arrive and then disappear?'

There was a whisper inside. 'Huh?' the TV replied. A technical term, meaning it did not understand the request.