Distress

began typing on the keyboard.

Without pausing, she said, 'Mr. Savimbi, if you find the technology of your profession too daunting, perhaps you should look for something less challenging. This is the quote, from the original Reuters story, filed in Stockholm on December 10th, 2053. And it's only taken me fifteen seconds to find it,'

She held up the notepad, and her recorded voice said: 'I don't wake up every morning and say to myself: 'I'm an African woman, how should this be reflected in my work?' I don't think that way at all. I wonder if anyone asked Dr. Wozniak how being European influenced his approach to polymer synthesis.'

There was more applause—from more of the audience, this time—but I sensed a growing predatory undercurrent. Mosala was becoming visibly agitated, and however sympathetic the pack were—in principle—I had no doubt that they'd be overjoyed if she was provoked into losing control.

'Janet Walsh, Planet News. Ms. Mosala, perhaps you could clarify something for me. This Theory of Everything you keep talking about, which is going to sum up the final truth about the universe… it sounds absolutely wonderful to me, but I would like to hear exactly what it's based on.'

Mosala must have known who Walsh was, but she betrayed no sign of hostility. She said, 'Every TOE is an attempt to find a deeper explanation for what's called the Standard Unified Field Theory. That was completed in the late twenties—and it's survived all experimental tests, so far. Strictly speaking, the SUFT is already a 'Theory of Everything': it does give a unified account of all the forces of nature. But its a very messy, arbitrary theory— based on a ten-dimensional universe with a lot of strange quirks which are difficult to take at face value. Most of us believe that there's a simpler explanation underlying it, just waiting to be found.'

Walsh said, 'But this SUFT you're trying to supplant—what was that based on?'

'A number of earlier theories which each, separately, accounted for one or two of the four basic forces. But if you want to know where those earlier theories came from, I'd have to recount five thousand years of scientific history. The short answer is, ultimately, a TOE will be based on observations of every aspect of the world, and the search for patterns in those observations.'

'That's it?' Walsh mimed happy disbelief. 'Then we're all scientists, aren't we? We all use our senses, we all make observations. And we all see patterns. I see patterns in the clouds above my home, every time I walk out into the garden.' She smiled a modest, self-deprecating smile.

Mosala said, 'That's a start. But there are two powerful steps beyond that kind of observation, which have made all the difference. Carrying out deliberate, controlled experiments, instead of only watching nature as it unfolds. And carrying out quantitative observations: making measurements, and trying to find patterns in the numbers.'

'Eike numerology?'

Mosala shook her head, and said patiently, 'Not any pattern, for the sake of it. You have to have a clear hypothesis to start with, and you have to know how to test it.'

'You mean… use all the right statistical methods, and so on?'

'Exactly.'

'But given the right statistical methods… you think the whole truth about the universe is spelled out in the patterns you can find by peering at an endless list of numbers?'

Mosala hesitated, probably wondering if the tortuous process of explaining anything more subtle would be worse than accepting that characterization other life's work.

'More or less.'

'Everything's in the numbers? The numbers never lie?'

Mosala lost all patience. 'No, they don't.'

Walsh said, 'That's very interesting. Because a few months ago, I came across a preposterous—very offensive!—idea that was being spread on some of the far-right-wing European networks. I thought it deserved to be properly—scientifically!—refuted. So I bought a little statistical package, and I asked it to test the hypothesis that a certain portion—a certain quota—of the Nobel Prizes since the year 2010 have been explicitly reserved on political grounds for the citizens of African nations.' There was a moment of stunned silence, then a wave of outraged exclamations spread across the room. Walsh held up her notepad and continued, raising her voice over the outcry, 'And the answer was, there was a ninety-five percent chance—' Half a dozen people in the fan club rows sprang to their feet and started shouting at her; the two men on either side of me began hissing. Walsh pressed on, with an expression of bemusement, as if she couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. 'The answer was, there was a ninety-five percent chance that it was true.'

A dozen more people stood up to abuse her. Four journalists stormed out of the auditorium. Walsh remained on her feet, waiting for a response, smiling innocently. I saw Marian Fox move tentatively toward the podium; Mosala gestured to her to stay back.

Mosala began typing on her notepad. The shouting and hissing gradually subsided, and then everyone but Walsh took their seats again.

The silence can't have lasted more than ten seconds, but it was long enough for me to realize that my heart was pounding. I wanted to punch someone. Walsh was no racist, but she was an expert manipulator. She'd slipped a barb under everyone's skin; if she'd had two hundred screaming, placard-waving followers at the back of the auditorium, she couldn't have raised stronger passions.

Mosala looked up and smiled sweetly.

She said, 'The African scientific renaissance has been examined in detail, in over thirty papers in the last ten years. I'd be happy to give you the references, if you can't track them down yourself. You'll find there are several more sophisticated hypotheses for explaining the sharp rise in the number of articles published in peer- reviewed scientific journals, the rates of citation of those articles, the number of patents awarded—and the number of Nobel Prizes for physics and chemistry.

'When it comes to your own field, though, I'm afraid you're on your own. I can't find a single study which offers any alternative explanation to the ninety-nine percent likelihood that, since its inception, a quota of Booker Prizes have been set aside for a clearly delineated, intellectually challenged minority: hacks who should have stayed in advertizing.'

The auditorium exploded with laughter. Walsh remained standing for a few seconds, then took her seat with remarkable dignity: unrepentant, unashamed, unfazed. I wondered if all she'd wanted was for Mosala to hit back on the same level. There was no question that Planet Noise would find a way to twist the exchange into a victory for Walsh: SCIENCE PRODIGY, CONFRONTED WITH THE FACTS, INSULTS RESPECTED AUTHOR. But most of the media would report that Mosala had responded with great restraint to deliberate provocation.

There were a few more questions—all of them innocuous and mildly technical—then the session was declared at an end. I walked around to the back of the stage, where Karin De Groot was waiting for me.

De Groot was unmistakably ifem—a look which was not at all 'halfway toward' androgynous; it was far more distinctive than that. While ufems and umales exaggerated well-established facial gender cues, and asexes eliminated them, the first ifems and imales had modeled the human visual system and found completely new clusters of parameters which would set them apart at a glance—without rendering them all homogeneous.

She shook my hand then led me toward one of the hotel's small meeting rooms. She said quietly, 'Go easy on her, will you? That wasn't pleasant back there.'

'I can't imagine anyone handling it better.'

'Violet's not someone I'd want as an enemy; she never hits back without thinking it through. But that doesn't mean she's made of stone.'

The room had a table and seating for twelve, but only Mosala was waiting there. I'd been half expecting a private security guard—but then, the fan club notwithstanding, she wasn't quite in the rock star league. And Kuwale's dire intimations notwithstanding, there was probably no need.

Mosala greeted me warmly. 'I'm sorry we couldn't do this earlier, but I'm afraid I hadn't set aside any time for it. After all those meetings with Sarah Knight, I'd assumed the whole planning stage was over.'

All those meetings with Sarah Knight? Pre-production should never have gone that far without SeeNet's approval.

I said, 'I'm sorry to put you through it again. There's always some unavoidable duplication when a new director takes over a project.'