difficult; thousands of ISPs would have to be blocked. But Changcheng calls only for cutting the Chinese part of the Web off from the rest of the world, and the appropriate infrastructure is in place for that. I don’t anticipate any problems.” Another pause. “But, if I may, how long do you intend to have Changcheng in effect?”
“Several days; perhaps a week.”
“You’re worried about word reaching the foreign press?”
“No. I’m worried about word coming back from them to our people.”
“Ah, yes. They will misconstrue what you’re intending to do in Shanxi, Excellency.”
“Doubtless,” the president said, “but it will ultimately blow over. Fundamentally, the rest of the world doesn’t care what happens to the Chinese people, least of all to our poorest citizens. They have always turned a blind eye to what happens within our borders, so long as they can shop cheaply at their Wal-Marts. They will move on to other things soon enough.”
“Tian—” Zhang stopped himself, the allusion that was never made by others in these contexts stillborn on his lips.
But the president nodded. “That was different; those were students. Our actions there were the same as those of the Americans at Kent State and a hundred other places. The Westerners saw themselves in what we did, and it was their own self-loathing they transferred to us. But rural peasants? There is no connection. There may be vitriol for a short time, but it will die down because they will realize that our actions have helped make them — the Westerners — safe. Meanwhile, we will present a more palatable story to our people; I will leave preparing that in your capable hands. But if word does get out during the most sensitive period, when the incident is fresh, I don’t want a distorted Western view of it being reflected back into this country.”
Zhang nodded. “Very well. Still, the Changcheng Strategy will have its own repercussions.”
“Yes,” said the President. “I know. I’m sure the Minister of Finance will complain about the economic impact; he will urge me to make the interruption as short as possible.”
Zhang tilted his head. “Well, even during it, Chinese individuals will still be able to call and email other Chinese; Chinese consumers will still be able to buy online from Chinese merchants; Chinese television signals will still be relayed by satellites. Life will go on.” A pause. “But, yes, there will be needs for international electronic cash transfers — the Americans servicing their debts to us, for instance. We can keep certain key channels open, of course, but nonetheless a short interruption is doubtless best.”
The president swiveled his chair, his back now to Zhang, and he looked out the other window, at the slanted roofs of the Forbidden City, the silver sky shimmering overhead.
His country’s rapidly increasing prosperity had been a joy to behold, and it was, he knew, thanks to his policies. In a few more decades, peasant villages like the ones in question would be gone anyway; China would be the richest country in the world. Yes, there would always be foreign trade but by the end of this century there would be no more “developing world,” no cheap labor here — or anywhere else — for foreigners to use. Raising the level of prosperity in the People’s Republic meant that China would eventually be able to go back to what it had always been, back to the roots of its strength: an isolated nation with purity of thought and purpose. This would simply be a small taste of that, an appetizer for things to come.
Zhang said, “When are you going to give the order to implement Changcheng?”
The president turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. “Me? No, no. That would be…” His gaze roamed about the opulent office, as if seeking a word stashed among the ceramic and crystal art objects. “That would be unseemly,” he said at last. “It would be much more appropriate if you gave the order.”
Zhang was clearly struggling to keep his features composed, but he made the only response he could under the circumstances. “Yes, Your Excellency.”
Caitlin hadn’t told Bashira when she’d asked back in the school’s cafeteria, but the first thing Caitlin really wanted to see was her mother’s face. They both had what were called heart-shaped faces, although the plastic model heart she’d felt at school had borne little resemblance to the idealized form she was familiar with from foil- wrapped chocolates and paper valentines.
Caitlin knew that she and her mother also had similar noses — small, slightly upturned — and their eyes were closer together than most people’s. She had read that it was normal to have the width of one imaginary eye separating the other two. She liked that phrase: an imaginary eye, she supposed, saw imaginary things, and that was not unlike her view of the world. Indeed, she often read or heard things that required her to rethink her conception of reality. She remembered her shock, years ago, at learning the quarter moon wasn’t a fat wedge like one-fourth of a pie.
Still, she was positive she was sitting in an examination room at the hospital attached to the University of Tokyo, and she was confident she had a good mental image of that room. It was smallish — she could tell by the way sound echoed. And she knew the chair she was in was padded, and by touch and smell she was sure its upholstery was vinyl. She also knew there were three other people in the room: her mother, standing in front of her; Dr. Kuroda, who had obviously had something quite spicy for lunch; and one of Kuroda’s colleagues, a woman who was recording everything with a video camera.
Kuroda had given a little speech to the camera in Japanese, and now was repeating it in English. “Miss Caitlin Decter, age fifteen and blind since birth, has a systematic encoding flaw in her visual-processing system: all of the data that is supposed to be encoded by her retinas is indeed encoded, but it is scrambled to the point of being unintelligible to her brain. The scrambling is consistent — it always happens in the same way — and the technology we have developed simply remaps the signals into the normal human-vision coding scheme. We are now about to find out if her brain can interpret the corrected signals.”
All through the Japanese version, and continuing over the English one, Caitlin concentrated on the sensory details she could pick up about the room: the sounds and how they echoed; the smells, which she tried to separate one from the other so that she could determine what was causing them; the feel of the chair’s armrest against her own arms, its back against her back. She wanted to fix in her mind her perception of this place prior to actually seeing it.
When he was done with his spiel, Dr. Kuroda turned to face her — the shift in his voice was obvious — and he said, “All right, Miss Caitlin, please close your eyes.”
She did so; nothing changed.
“Okay. Let’s get the bandage off. Keep your eyes closed, please. There might be some visual noise when I turn on the signal-processing computer.”
“Okay,” she said, although she had no idea what “visual noise” might be. She felt an uncomfortable tugging and then — yeow! — Kuroda pulled away the adhesive strips. She brought a hand up to rub her cheek.
“After I activate the outboard signal-processing unit, which Miss Caitlin refers to as her eyePod,” he said, for the benefit of the camera, “we’ll wait ten seconds for things to settle down before she opens her eyes.”
She heard him shifting in his chair.
There was a beep, and then she heard him counting. She had an excellent time-sense — very useful when you can’t see clocks — and, maddeningly, Kuroda’s “seconds” were about half again as long as they should have been. But she dutifully kept her eyes closed.
“…eight … nine … ten!”
Please, God, Caitlin thought. She opened her eyes, and—
And her heart sank. She blinked rapidly a few times, as if there could have been any doubt about whether her eyes were truly open.
“Well?” said her mom, sounding as anxious as Caitlin felt.
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?” asked Kuroda. “No sensation of light? No color? No shapes?”
Caitlin felt her eyes tearing up; at least they were good for that. “No.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It might take a few minutes.” To her astonishment, one of his thick fingers flicked against her left temple, as though he was trying to get a piece of equipment with a loose connection to come to life.
It was hard to tell, because there was so much background noise — doctors being paged, gurneys rolling by outside — but she thought Kuroda was moving in his chair now, and — yes, she could feel his breath on her face. It
