Distress

to a TOE which predicts that they’ll get together to form a universe.

“And maybe the Theory of Everything should collapse into nothing but ’statements about numbers which have to be true.’ Maybe pre-space itself has to melt into nothing but simple arithmetic, simple logic—leaving us with no choices to make about its structure at all.”

I laughed. “I think even SeeNet’s audience might have some trouble wrapping their minds around that.” I certainly did. “Look, maybe it’s going to take a while for you and Helen Wu to make sense of all this. We can always do an update on it, back in Cape Town, if it turns out to be an important development.”

Mosala agreed, relieved. Throwing ideas around was one thing, but she clearly didn’t want to take a position on this, officially. Not yet.

Before I could lose my nerve, I said, “Do you think you’ll still be living in Cape Town, in six months’ time?”

I’d braced myself for the kind of outburst the word Anthrocosmologist had produced—but Mosala simply observed drily, “Well, I didn’t think it could remain a secret for long. I suppose the whole conference is talking about it.”

“Not exactly. I heard it from a local.”

She nodded, unsurprised. “I’ve been having discussions with the academic syndicates here, for months. So it’s probably all over the island by now.” She flashed a wry smile. “Not much into confidentiality, these anarchists. But what can you expect from patent violators and intellectual property thieves?”

I said, “So what’s the attraction?”

She stood. “Can you stop recording, please?” I complied. “When all the details have been worked out, I’ll make a public statement—but I don’t want some off-the-cuff remark on the subject coming out first.”

“I understand.”

She said, “What’s the attraction of patent violators and intellectual property thieves? That very fact. Stateless is renegade, they flout the biotech licensing laws. She turned toward the window, and stretched out her arms. “And look at them! They’re not the wealthiest people on the planet—but no one here is starving. No one. That’s not true in Europe, Japan, Australia—let alone in Angola, Malawi…” She trailed off, and studied me for a moment, as if trying to decide if I really had stopped filming. If she really should trust me at all.

I waited. She continued.

“What’s that got to do with me? My own country’s doing well enough. I'm not exactly in danger of malnutrition, am I?” She closed her eyes and groaned. “This is very hard for me to say. But… like it or not, the Nobel prize has given me a certain kind of power. If I move to Stateless—and state the reasons why—it will make news. It will make an impact, in certain places.”

She hesitated again.

I said, “I can keep my mouth shut.”

Mosala smiled faintly. “I know that. I think.”

“So what kind of impact do you want to make?”

She walked over to the window. I said, “Is this some kind of political gesture against traditionalists like PACDF?”

She laughed. “No, no, no! Well… maybe it will be that as well, coincidentally. But that’s not the point.” She steeled herself. “I’ve had assurances. From a number of highly placed people. I’ve been promised that if I move to Stateless… not because I matter, but because it will make news, and create a pretext… the South African government will unilaterally drop all sanctions against the island, within six months.”

I had goose bumps. One country might make no difference—except that South Africa was the major trading partner of about thirty other African nations.

Mosala said quietly, “The voting patterns in the UN don’t show it, but the fact is, the anti-sanctions faction is not a tiny minority. At present, there’s all kinds of bloc solidarity and surface agreement, because everyone believes they can’t win, and they don’t want to cause offense.”

“But if someone gave the right little push, they might start an avalanche?”

“Maybe.” She laughed, embarrassed. “Talk about delusions of grandeur. The truth is, I get sick to the core every time I think about it— and I don’t actually believe anything dramatic is going to happen.”

“One person to break the symmetry. Why not?”

She shook her head firmly. “There’ve been other attempts to shift the vote, which have all fallen through. Anything’s worth trying, but I have to keep my feet on the ground.”

Several things were running through my mind at once—though what might happen if the biotech patent laws ever really collapsed, globally, was almost too distant a prospect to contemplate. But the fact remained that Mosala had more use for the documentary than I’d ever imagined—and she’d told me all this to let me know as much, to give me the leverage she wanted me to employ, to ensure that her emigration did cause a stir.

It was also clear that the whole endeavor—however Quixotic—would be extremely unpopular in certain quarters.

Was that what Kuwale had had in mind? Not the Ignorance Cults, not PACDF fundamentalists, not even pro-science South African nationalists outraged by Mosala’s ‘desertion’—but powerful defenders of the biotech status quo? And if the teenaged burglar ‘paid’ to frighten her, hadn’t been lying, after all…

Mosala walked over to a side table and poured herself a glass of water. “Now you know all my deepest secrets, so I declare this interview over.” She raised the glass and declaimed self-mockingly, “Vive la technoliberation!”

“Vive.”

She said seriously, “Okay: there are rumors. Maybe half of Stateless knows exactly what’s going on—but I still don’t want those rumors confirmed until certain arrangements, certain agreements, are much more solid.”

“I understand.” And I realized, with a kind of astonishment, that somewhere along the way I’d won some measure of trust from her. Of course she was using me—but she must have believed that my heart was in the right place, that I’d let myself be used.

I said, “Next time you’re arguing circularity with Helen Wu deep into the night, do you think I could…?”

“Sit in? And record it?” She seemed to find the prospect dubious, but she said, “All right. Just so long as you promise not to fall asleep before we do.”

She walked me to the door, and we shook hands. I said, “Be careful.” She smiled serenely, slightly amused at my concern, as if she didn’t have an enemy in the world. “Don’t worry. I will.”

17

I was woken by a call just after four, the ringing growing louder and more shrill until it reached into my melatonin dreams and turned the darkness of my skull inside-out. For an instant, the mere fact of consciousness was shocking, unspeakable; I was outraged as a newborn child. Then I stretched out an arm and groped around on the bedside table for my notepad. I squinted at the screen, blinded for a moment by its brightness.

The call was from Lydia. I almost refused to take it, assuming that she’d somehow miscalculated the time zones, but then I woke sufficiently to realize that it was the middle of the night for her, too. Sydney was only two hours behind Stateless. Geographically, if not politically.

She said, “Andrew, I'm sorry to disturb you, but I thought you had a right to hear this in realtime.” She looked uncharacteristically grim, and though I was still too groggy even to speculate about what was coming next, it was obvious that it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

I said hoarsely, “That’s okay. Go ahead.” I tried not to imagine what I looked like, gaping bleary-eyed at the camera. Lydia seemed to be in a darkened room, herself, her face lit only by the image on the screen… of me, lit only by the image other. Was that possible? I suddenly realized that I had a pounding headache.