Rainbows End

"You did good, kid," said Robert.

Juan just nodded, shaking.

The hybrid orchestra began to play. Now it was up to these kids and Robert's jitter algorithm. The sounds of cellos and basses rose from the young musicians in Boston and from the other end of the world. The kids' adaptation had a faster beat than the usual EU style. And every note came across hundreds of hops of randomly changing networkery, with delays that could vary by several hundred milliseconds.

There was the same synchronization problem that had made Wi

Juan's lyrics climbed up, the chorus from the north singing his English version, and the one from the south his Spanish. Their student collaborators had created a flexible work with its own conductor interface; that helped some. Plus they were surprisingly good musicians and singers. But the performance still needed the magic of the adaptive delays that Robert's scheme injected into the transmissions (well, okay, and maybe also the far deeper magic that was Beethoven's).

Robert listened. His contribution was not perfect. In fact, this was worse than the rehearsals. Too many people were watching, and too suddenly . He'd been afraid this might happen. The problem was not bandwidth. He glanced at the variance plot he had put in his private view. It showed the presence of several million people suddenly observing, grabbing resources so fast that they confused his poor little prediction program — and changed the nature of what was observed.

And yet, the synch survived. The hybrid did not fragment.

Ten seconds to go. The performance hit some slightly ragged crescen-dos, and then, by some miracle, everything came together for the last two seconds. Juan's lyrics ended, and the central melody swept into silence.

The joint orchestra/chorus looked out at the audience. They were smiling, some perhaps a little embarrassed — but they had brought it off!

There was applause, wildly enthusiastic from some quarters.

Poor Juan looked absolutely drained. Fortunately, he didn't have to venture out on the field to wind things up. The performers were making their bows and trooping to the north and south ends of the stage — back to their respective corners of the world. Juan's smile was a little sickly as he waved to the local audience. His voice came sideways to Robert. "Hey, I don't care what grade it gets. We did it and we're done!"

34

The British Museum and the British Library

The kids rushed off the bleachers, only slightly impeded by the fact that Chumlig & Co could review the evening and determine just who had been unacceptably bumptious. Juan and Robert were slower, hanging with the other demo students and exchanging congratulations. Grades for the demos wouldn't be available for another twenty hours or so. They would have plenty of time to agonize over their failings. Nevertheless, Louise Chumlig looked quite cheerful, giving each student her congratulations — and deflecting all ma

Still no sign of Miri or Bob. Robert's attention was filled with the kids and Chumlig and Juan Orozco — this last person alternating between hysterical relief and the conviction of failure.

So it was without forewarning that Robert found himself face-to-face — almost nose-to-nose — with Winston Blount. Behind the former dean, Tommie Parker was standing hand-in-hand with Xiu Xiang. Now, that was surely the strangest pairing to come out of this adventure! The little guy was gri

But for the moment, Blount had all his attention. Robert had seen little of Tommie and Wi

Just now there was an odd smile on Wi

"Oh! She did well, Winston!"

"Thank you, thank you. And you — Wi

"It wasn't my work, Winston." And maybe this is a putdown, but I don't mean it that way . "Juan here did the lyrics. We collaborated all through the semester, but on this I let him go, just critiqued the final effort. Honestly — and this Chumlig character is the death of lies — honestly, Juan is responsible."

"Oh?" Wi

Robert thought a second, listening to Juan's lyrics with his imagination the way he used to listen to his own poetry. No, I was better than that . Much better. But not better like being in a different world. If the old Robert could have seen these lyrics… well, the old Robert couldn't abide second-raters. Given half an excuse, he would have made sure that Juan's art died aborning. "You're right. Juan made a beautiful thing." He hesitated. "I don't know what… the years have done, Winston."

Juan looked back and forth between them. There was the begi

Wi

"Aha! I did the time-lag synchronization." As much as it could be done .

"Really?" Wi

Xiu — > Lena: For God's sake, say something to him, Lena!

Lena — > Xiu: Buzz off, you!

Xiu — > Lena: Then I will speak for you.

After a few more pleasantries, Wi

Xiu — > Robert: That was great, Robert. Juan was oblivious of Xiang's silent message. "Dean Blount didn't understand your part in our project, did he?"

"No. But he liked what he did understand. It doesn't matter. You and I both did better than we thought we could."

"Yes, we really did."

Juan led him back along the bleachers. Even if Bob and Miri weren't here, Juan's own parents were. Greetings and congratulations all around, though the Orozcos still didn't know what to make of Robert Gu.

A clot OF family and friends remained on the soccer field for some time. More than anything else, the parents seemed faintly surprised by their children. They loved the little klutzes, but they thought they knew their limits. Somehow Chumlig had transformed them — not into supermen, but into clever creatures who could do things the parents themselves had never mastered. It was a time for pride and a little uneasiness.