Learning the World

But this is a digression. I wrenched the conversation back on topic.

“All right,” I said. “And alien contact is, too.”

“The Council hasn’t behaved like we’re in a state of emergency,” Grant said. He waved a hand at the wall screens. “Everybody’s still arguing, there have been no decrees or anything.”

“That is not the point,” I said. “Everybody should know what the real situation is.”

Grant shrugged. “If you say so. The emergency looks more virtual than real at the moment.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure why this bugs me so much,” I said.

But it did. So I sent my message — you may have seen it — to every newsline I could reach: Are We in an Undeclared State of Emergency?

And I await an answer.

It was a place of blue tiled domes and white stone walls; of arches and arbours, orchards and courtyards, of narrow alleys and broad avenues and wide stairways, of aqueducts and fountains; of limes and oranges, figs and pomegranates. The fruit was eaten by birds and monkeys or rotted where it fell. (It had something to do with recycling.) White City was a haunt of the older generation. That made it a more happening place than the child-rearing suburbs or the teen-cohort towns. In that respect it reminded Horrocks of the free-fall cones. Some of the house prices that appeared in discreet virtual tags here and there showed higher numbers than any of his deals. He walked its streets with caution, taking care not to collide with even virtual presences. He took care, too, to keep his balance. Since his first adventure in walking he had become competent and confident, though here in White City the smoothness of the paving was as reassuring as the hardness of its stone was troubling.

The founder generation, the First Hundred Thousand as they sometimes styled themselves, dominated the streets and plazas. Salons discoursed in shaded sidewalk cafes, as much meaning carried in virtuality-freighted glances as was conveyed in speech. In other cafes business was done, under an aspect of leisure. Lovers strolled arm in arm, or entwined each other in nooks. Musicians of heartbreaking talent performed in small green patches of park. Sculpture and murals were displayed or in the process of creation, in processes that struck Horrocks as contrived in their difficulty. In the cones the subtle arts of the matter-composer were carried on with refinement and panache; what went on down here, he thought with some disdain as his sandals crunched marble chippings, was cutting edge stuff.

When they weren’t exerting themselves in primitive art and architecture or disporting themselves in courtly assignations or vexing their brains with hyperintelligent hyperchat, the founders indulged in likewise artificial risk-taking. Hang gliders and microlights soared above the town. Bicyclists and roller-skaters whizzed along the otherwise pedestrian streets. There was even a combat sport, a form of wrestling whose bouts consisted of long minutes of watchful poise followed by a move almost too swift to see, which in playback unpacked into a flurry of lethal-looking blows, grips, and throws, and ended always with one or both participants stretchered off.

The other thing the founders did was conspire in cliques. It had long been established in the Civil Worlds that public business was to be transparent, and personal business opaque; but it was as well recognised that the two would always have a turbulent interface, and that the clique, the caucus, and the conspiracy were as ineradicable features of civility as the council or the committee. The confabulation of elders to which Horrocks had been invited was known, where it was known at all, as the Red Sun Circle. He had been given to understand that the invitation was a privilege, but he was not much impressed. The politicking of the founders was not their only proclivity that struck him as adolescent. Only his respect for Awlin Halegap, who’d delivered the invitation, and an itch of curiosity, had brought him here.

Here, where the guidance ware in his head had led his feet. He stood in front of a plain green double door in a white wall. The paint and the whitewash had bubbled and flaked. The nailheads and fittings were of pitted black iron, as was a knob at waist level. Horrocks placed his palm against it and wrapped his fingers around it. Nothing happened. He thumped the door with the heel of his fist, in the time-honoured ma

“Come in,” she said. “You’re expected.”

“Thank you,” said Horrocks. He stepped past her into a courtyard and watched as she pushed the door shut and turned another knob, this one on the inside. Again the sliding noise and the click. The woman looked somehow familiar, though Horrocks was sure he had never seen her. Small and sturdy, she had a mass of black curly hair, some of it caught by a clasp and piled on top of her head. Her shiny green shift was simple, as were her sandals, which showed underneath the hem. She pivoted and held out a hand.

“Synchronic Narrative Storm,” she said. Her grip was firm, her eyes amused.

“Horrocks Mathematical.” He hoped he didn’t look as embarrassed as he felt. No wonder he had almost recognised her. Atomic Discourse’s caremother had sent him a very sharp note when the girl had been training in his habitat, and something of her appearance and demeanour had accompanied it like a synaethesic scent.

“Ah, sorry about—”

She released his hand and waved in front of his face. “Forget it,” she said. “I was just being overprotective. Caremothers do, you know. Come on in and meet the gang.”

She led him past a long stone-walled pool in which fat, lazy mullets swam in salt water, to an area behind it at which a dozen or so people had gathered in the shade of orange trees. Some perched on the pool’s wall, others stood or sat around a few round white-painted wrought-iron tables. In a corner, chicken flesh sizzled on a barbecue. Horrocks recognised only Awlin Halegap, who sprang up to welcome him and introduce the rest. They were all founder generation, their skins deeply ta

As he’d expected, he couldn’t follow the buzz. It was not a question only of his elders’ higher bandwidth. Even in normal speech they carried more information than he could process. These people had known each other for centuries. Allusions zipped past his head like deflected meteors. He found himself missing jests, or laughing loud and alone. He began to wonder why he was there. It was only after the last gnawed chicken femur had been thrown on the coals and the last finger licked that Synchronic turned to him with an explanation.

“You’ve gambled in terrestrials,” she said. “So have we. Of course none of us expected such an interesting terrestrial, any more than you did. But unlike you, perhaps, we’ve leveraged some of our stakes into long futures — decades, even centuries in some cases.”

Horrocks nodded. “Wouldn’t be much use to me,” he said. “I expect to be out of here well before then.”

In ten or so years of normal development, the sun-line’s power supply would be switched over from the engine to a purpose-built power plant drawing on the Destiny Star system’s indigenous resources, most likely some combination of solar and fusion power. The cones would disengage from the great spi