Puzzling out two narratives.
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–You know, I think you made a mistake.
What kind of mistake?
–Choosing me. You probably just chose me at random, didn't you?
Not exactly. I was aware of your age and health. I knew your body could handle the time-freeze for a few seconds. And I knew you were male; I wanted both male and female.
–But I'm not really representative.
How would you know? I doubt if you have data on that. That's what I'm collecting now, and I can tell you that you are nearly 100% the same as the other humans on earth. I can show you the readouts.
–I'm different from most people I know about, so if you get your data from me, it might be skewed.
I've been trained how to choose specimens. You're not being objective.
–Why and how should I be objective about myself? Look, I have a different attitude, different work, different beliefs than most people on Earth.
Those kinds of things show up in our psychic scans to a small degree, but they're not that important.
–They're important to me.
Excuse me, do you hear those tones? Let's see how the scanners are doing. These data are amazing. I can't wait to do the numbers when I get home. There are far more people existing in your time than we thought. See these colors? Do you want to talk about what's representative? You are not only representative of humans just now, but of most life on the planet. The differences are very small, except when you get to the dominant life forms, the viruses and plagioni. They're very different and it will be very interesting to trace how they've evolved to where they are in my time. We're doing a very good job controlling them even though they far outnumber us and often outmaneuver us. You're not saying anything, David.
–My differences make me who I am.
I suppose you're very proud of them.
–We have a saying, that some people can’t see the forest for the trees. You, you know nothing of the trees. For you the only safe thing is to know of the forest.
I'm a scientist. I certainly know about both trees and forests.
–It's just an expression. What I do and how I think gives me energy, vitality. Your psychic scans would be very different if I hated my life.
Maybe so, I don't know. I doubt it. You draw, is that what you're talking about?
–I'm an explorer, like you.
A pilot?
–No, an artist.
I never understood that. I just know I can't do it, whatever it is, and we have no real use for it because the artists are all in Alitana. Why are you laughing?
–You don't know what it is but you're quite sure you can't do it and have no use for it. If you're a researcher, you should be more curious than that.
I am well trained. I know how to do everything I need to do. We have protocols and techniques. What is unpredictable is my data, my results. I'm curious about that. But just to tell you, I can't help wondering, sometimes, about, well ... is what you do risky?
–I would say so. I have no protocols. I have to create my plans, my procedures. I'm well trained in my techniques too, like you, and what is unpredictable for me is, well, you might call it the data. Except I don't use machines to collect it, just my senses. If you pay attention, it's all unpredictable in some way. Sometimes more blatantly than other times. I didn't expect to meet you, for example.
No you couldn't have! But tell me about the risks. Do you meet people you don't know how to handle?
–My wife.
I thought you loved her.
–Yes.
Doesn't that mean you fit together well, you knew how to be?
–We met at a show of mine. We didn't at all know how to be then. We were very quickly sizzlingly passionate about each other. I had done drawings of people at border crossings, people at airports, people going somewhere new. She was working on changing border controls, and I think all her compassion for what people go through at those change points was suddenly focused on me like a laser.
Our friend in Isfalie told us of passion, of direct relations. He made fun of our stroncasts.
–Didn't the stroncasts make you want direct relations? Just to try them yourself?
The characters in stroncasts who went direct always ended up sick or dead or suffering. It is very scary to risk that. Very few of us are ready to take those risks. Besides, they can track what we're thinking, although that's really just for civic purposes and so we can all communicate with each other.
–They track what you're thinking?
Well, they could. Like with your headband. You can't hide what you're thinking so well.
–So what happens if you have embarrassing thoughts and they come through the headband?
They'd only come through if they're verbalized. I have lots of questionable thoughts and feelings that I don't verbalize.
–Funny how when someone smiles for the first time, you suddenly realize they haven't been smiling until then.
Do you mean me?
–Yes.
Why do you draw? Do you have an urge for it?
–It is visual note-taking. It is totally grounded. Seeing the way things look as I face them is very different from thinking about them. There's drama in the light and shade of a half-empty coffee cup but it's entirely different from the story about whether the cup's about to be poured into, drunk from, or washed out.
You like to draw coffee cups?
–Most of the time, I draw people. I study them.
Really? I study people too.
–Then we can study each other.
Well I can study you. You have nothing to draw with.
–Really? You have no pencils or pens?
No, we have no need to make a mark. The thoughts and words are captured by the headband, and I can go back and read it any time.
–Don't you ever make personal notes?
Yes, I just have to think them.
–But others can see them too.
But they don't.
–How is it I can hear you in my own accent, but you're not even wearing a headband?
Yes, and I hear you in my own language. I've studied the ancient languages too, but I can’t say I know them very well. There’s been nobody to practice on! Okay you want to know about the headband. The way I understand it, your headband picks up your brain’s language center activity when you are verbalizing, whether you actually physically say something or not. My brain is then stimulated the same way as yours, and allows my brain to verbalize what your headband transmitted. I perceive it according to what's in my language center, in my own language.
–But why do I hear you? You don't have a headband on. Do you wear it somewhere else?
Oh, we can use headbands if we want to. But it's free to get them implanted, and if you don't, you have to pay a user fee and all that.
–User fee?
Well, it costs them to give out the headbands, maintain them, track you specially in case you take it off and all that, so it's understandable they'd need to charge something. It's a lot easier for everyone when we don't have to worry about the headband.
–So, no privacy at all, then?
That's not so important for us, really. We're all busy with our work most of the time, and we pretty much have what we need in Serdinane. We don't worry about privacy much. The fact is, we can't search anybody's information except our own. You can get information from other people if they give it to you, but to search everything you have access to? Only the government can do that. Even with the government, we don't worry about our privacy because there's a complete overload of information. It's too hard to find anything. I have a hard time even finding information about myself.
–Everyone in your world does this?
In Serdinane, we organize it that way. Alitana is more relaxed about it, people use headbands when they want to, to get information or talk to friends, or when they have to, for voting, and when other public decisions are taken and all that. I don't know about Panilus. I don't think they're that well organized except for food. Gulans, who knows. I'm sure they don't give anyone the choice we have. They probably have everyone hardwired.
–And nobody has figured out how to do without the headband connections?
That's a funny question. We use the connection all the time, everything goes through it, it would be pretty hard to go without. And it's more than just tracking people. They have systems that analyze how people think and what they think about, so they can pretty easily match you up with jobs that you'll do well in and that you'll enjoy. They even match you with friends you'll like. I do know someone who tried to figure out how to get around the headbands, though.
–Someone got creative.
Ha, yeah, he used to work for the agency. The one that tracks people. He made a device that can record your signals and then play them back. So his plan was to find a moment when you're sleeping and your signals match the recorded ones, then swap you out of your headband.
–Wow, that's a good idea.
Oh, it's not so easy. First of all, to swap back in, you have to go back to sleep and match up signals so he can switch you back to your headband, but if there was a hitch in getting you off the headband you wouldn't know about it until you get the knock on the door and then it'll be too late. Second of all, you have to have a headband, and not too many people in Serdinane still pay for those. So the farthest he ever got was to test it with someone for ten minutes at night while they slept.
–They really have you under control, don't they? Propaganda, tracking?
You're funny. You said yourself there's no freedom if you live in fear. So why would you want me to live in fear of propaganda and tracking?
Listen, the higher melody tells us we are entering a new navigational segment. We are crossing the equator. Soon coming over the Gulans.
–That's southeast Asia coming up. What are all these blue and green and orange colors on the viewer?
Blue is basically fish, green is vegetation, orange is land or air animals. You see how the oceans are packed with life? Hardly any humans but lots of life. Our DNA spectrometer is mapping the genetic code of every living organism it can see. It doesn't bother mapping duplicates, though, it just counts those.
–The colors are beautiful. I mean the real Earth, not in the viewer. Look out the window. Deep colors, swirling misty clouds. I've never been to Asia. So that's where you lost Ranlen.
No, not there. It happened farther over, in the high mountains.
–Are they coming up?
Soon. Look to the west. They are the only untouched place on Earth. Even there, we came across trash, bones, tools, here and there. But mostly untouched and breathtakingly beautiful sights.
–I love hiking. That would have been very far from home if you lived in North Am—I mean Serdinane.
We were on vacation from the Institute and my mother and father thought it would be good for us to visit Alitana.
–Will we be flying over Alitana too?
Oh yes, we cover everything on this flight. I need to get data from the entire globe. DNA, geography, communications, and also we're picking up astronomical charts from all viewpoints. The astronomy department wants to analyze actual views from this time period. Over there, David.
–Where?
There. See the very high mountains?
–Okay, I see them. We call them the Himalayas. Tallest on Earth.
Yes, that's where it happened.
–Is that Gulans too?
No, Gulans ends at the mountains. Alitana owns the mountains and everything west of them until the ocean. But the mountains may as well be part of Gulans. Alitana has no real interest in them, except as a good defense barrier against Gulans. Alitana fiercely defends its population but no one lives in the high mountains. That's why they're so untouched and beautiful.
–So wouldn't you be pretty safe there, then? If Alitana is not guarding the mountains, and Gulans doesn't own them, you should be able to wander around there without too much worry.
That's what we thought. It turns out that because Alitana doesn't bother with the mountains, Gulans can patrol them, and does, because the Gulans are constantly on guard to make sure no one gets anywhere close to their borders.
–You got picked up by a Gulans patrol?
Not me. Ranlen.
–You're silent, even in your thoughts. Are you listening to the reports?
No. I just don't know what to say and I don't know what I think.
–Well, just tell me what happened. You don't have to think. Just remember.
A lot of times I've tried not to remember.
–Alita, if you have some machine to adjust or a cabinet to clean, go do it. Otherwise, tell me. I want to know.
He wants to know. Okay, David. All I can think about is how I yelled at him. But you wouldn't understand it if I didn't tell you that we had a glorious week in a beautiful place first. We had never visited a place before without people around. That's what happens when you have 50 billion people on the planet. We visited Isfalie. You don't know what that means. It's a city like only a few others, all in Alitana. Drinks and games. Concerts and plays. One play was a spoof of a Serdinane stroncast. Hilarious. Murals on so many of the buildings. Parks with homeless people, drunks, poor people. We have none of this at home. In Serdinane, we've pretty much figured it all out. No real problem people, very little sickness, and we can choose what pleases us whenever we want, with communications like what you and I are using. Stroncasts, entertainment, any music you want any time, without waiting for people to get ready and actually play it, you know what I mean. But I have to say it was relaxing for a vacation to see real people do the music and plays and see people be openly poor or helpless. Just a different experience. You're not even thinking anything?
–I'm speechless. Don't even know what to think. I can imagine your world, I think, but I can't picture living with your world's attitude. The way it must need to justify itself. I'd have to live in Alitana, it sounds like the only place I'd have any hope of being myself, doing things I like. Is it selfish to want to justify your own life, and not just your country's?
You would love Alitana. That's probably why I have a longing for you. Like the longing I have to rewrite a few of my protocols, to take a few risks.
continued in 2 weeks…