Distress

be an instant martyr for technoliberation. And as a corpse, she’d be just as good a mascot, just as good an excuse for the South African government to lead an anti-boycott revolt in the UN.”

“Maybe,” ve conceded. “If the headlines told the right story.”

“How could the story fail to get out? Mosala’s backers would hardly stay silent.”

Kuwale smiled grimly. “Do you know who owns most of the media?”

“Yes, I do, so don’t give me that paranoid bullshit. A hundred different groups, a thousand different people…”

“A hundred different groups—most of which also own large biotech concerns. A thousand different people —most of them on the boards of at least one major player, from AgroGenesis to VivoTech.”

“That’s true, but there are other interests, with other agendas. It’s not as simple as you make it sound.”

We were alone now, on a large stretch of flat but unpaved reef-rock, prepared but not yet built upon; some small-scale construction machinery was clustered in the distance, but it appeared to be idle. Munroe had told me that no one could own land on Stateless—any more than they could own air—but equally, there was nothing to stop people fencing off and monopolizing vast tracts of it. That they chose not to made me distinctly uneasy; it seemed like an unnatural exercise of restraint—a delicately balanced consensus poised ready to collapse into a spate of land grabs, the creation of de facto titles, and an outraged— probably violent—backlash from those who hadn’t got in first.

And yet… Why come all the way out here, just to play Lord of the Flies? No society chooses to destroy itself. And if an ignorant tourist was capable of imagining how disastrous a land rush would be, the residents of Stateless must have thought it through themselves, in a thousand times more detail.

I spread my arms to encompass the whole renegade island. “If you really think the biotech companies can get away with murder, tell me why they haven’t turned Stateless into a fireball?”

“Bombing El Nido made that solution unrepeatable. You need a government to do it for you—and no government, now, would risk the backlash.”

“Sabotaged it, then? If EnGeneUity can’t come up with something to dissolve their own creation back into the sea, then the Beach Boys were lying.”

“The Beach Boys?”

“'Californian biotechnologists are the best in the world.’ Wasn’t that one of theirs?”

Kuwale said, “EnGeneUity are selling versions of Stateless all over the Pacific. Why would they sabotage their best demonstration model— their best advertizement, unauthorized or not? They might not have planned it this way, but the truth is, Stateless has cost them nothing—so long as no one else goes renegade.”

I wasn’t convinced, but the argument was going nowhere. “Do you want to show me your gallery of alleged corporate assassins? And then explain to me, very carefully, exactly what you plan to do if I tell you that I’ve sighted one of these people? Because if you think I'm entering into a conspiracy to murder—even in defense of the Keystone herself, even on Stateless—”

Kuwale cut me off. “There’s no question of violence. All we want to do is watch these people, gather the necessary intelligence, and tip off conference security as soon as we have something tangible.”

Vis notepad beeped. Ve halted, took it out of vis pocket and gazed at the screen for several seconds, then carefully paced a dozen meters south. I said, “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?”

Kuwale beamed proudly. “My data security is linked to the Global Positioning System. The most crucial files can’t be opened, even with the right passwords and voiceprint, unless you’re standing on the right spot—which changes, hour by hour. And I'm the only one who knows exactly how it changes.”

I almost asked: Why not memorize a long list of passwords, instead of locations? Stupid question. The GPS was there, so it had to be used—and a more convoluted security scheme was better, not because it was any more secure, but because the complexity of the system was an end in itself. Technophilia was like any other aesthetic; there was no point asking why?

Kuwale was only half a generation younger than me, and we probably shared eighty percent of our world views—but ve’d pushed all the things we both believed much further. Science and technology seemed to have given ver everything ve could ask for: an escape from the poisoned battleground of gender, a political movement worth fighting for, and even a quasi-religion—insane enough in its own way, but unlike most other science-friendly faiths, at least it wasn’t a laboriously contrived synthesis of modern physics and some dog-eared historical relic: a mock truce like the fatuities of Quantum Buddhism, or the Church of the Revised Standard Judaeo-Christian Big Bang.

I watched ver tinkering with the software, waiting for some conjunction of satellites and atomic clocks, and wondered: Would I have been happier, if I’d made the same decisions? As an asex—saved from a dozen screwed- up relationships. As a technoliberateur—with ideological zeal to shield me from any doubts about Nagasaki or Ned Landers. As an Anthrocosmologist—with a final explanation for everything which put me one up on even the TOE theorists, and inoculated me against competing religions in my old age.

Would I have been happier?

Maybe. But then, happiness was overrated.

Kuwale’s software chimed success. I walked over and accepted the data ve’d unlocked, tight-beam infrared flowing between our notepads.

I said, “I don’t suppose you want to tell me how you know about these people? Or how I'm meant to verify what you say about them?”

“That’s what Sarah Knight asked me.”

“I'm not surprised. And now I'm asking.”

Kuwale ignored me; the subject was closed. Ve gestured at my abdomen with vis notepad, and instructed me solemnly, “Move everything in there, first chance you get. Perfect security. You’re lucky.”

“Sure. While one EnGeneUity assassin is running around Stateless with your notepad, trying to find the right geographical coordinates, the others will be saving time by carving me open.”

Kuwale laughed. “That’s the spirit. You may not be much of a journalist, but we’ll make a revolutionary martyr out of you yet.”

Ve pointed across the expanse of reef-rock, glistening green and silver in the morning sun. “We should return to the city by separate routes. If you head that way, you’ll hit the southwest tram line in twenty minutes.”

“Okay.” I didn’t have the energy to argue. As ve turned to leave, though, I said, “Before you vanish, will you answer one last question?”

Ve shrugged. “No harm in asking.”

“Why are you doing this? I still don’t understand. You say you really don’t care whether Violet Mosala is the Keystone or not. But even if she’s such a great human being that her death would be a global tragedy… what makes that your personal responsibility? She knows exactly what she’s buying into, moving to Stateless. She’s a grown woman, with resources of her own, and more political clout than you or I could ever hope for. She’s not helpless, she’s not stupid—and if she knew what you were doing, she’d probably strangle you with her bare hands. So… why can’t you leave her to take care of herself?”

Kuwale hesitated, and cast vis eyes down. I seemed to have hit a nerve, at last; ve had the air of someone searching for the right words with which to unburden verself.

The silence stretched on, but I waited patiently. Sarah Knight had extracted the whole story, hadn’t she? There was no reason why I couldn’t do the same.

Kuwale looked up and replied casually, “Like I said: no harm in asking.

Ve turned and walked away.

18

I viewed the data Kuwale had given me while I waited for the tram. Eighteen faces, but no names. The images were standardized 3D portraits: backgrounds removed, lighting homogenized, like police mug shots. There were twelve men and six women, of diverse ages and ethnicities. It seemed a curiously large number; Kuwale hadn’t suggested that every one of them was actually on Stateless—but how, exactly, could ve have got hold of