This was what the people of Stateless had in common: not merely the island itself, but the firsthand knowledge that they stood on rock which the founders had crystallized out of the ocean—and which was, forever, dissolving again, only enduring through a process of constant repair. Beneficent nature had nothing to do with it; conscious human effort, and cooperation, had built Stateless—and even the engineered life which maintained it couldn't be treated as God-given, infallible; the balance could be disturbed in a thousand ways: mutants could arise, competitors could move in, phages could wipe out bacteria, climate change could shift vital equilibria. All the elaborate machinery had to be monitored, had to be understood.
In the long run, discord could literally sink the place. If it was no guarantee of harmony that nobody on Stateless
And if it was naive to think of this understanding as any kind of panacea, it had one undeniable advantage over all the contrived mythology of
It was true.
I copied everything from the camera's memory, to give me the scene in high resolution. When Rajendra had calmed down slightly, I asked for his permission to use the footage for broadcast; he agreed. I had no definite plans, but at the very least I could always smuggle it into the interactive version of
Munroe came with me, still shouldering his folded easel and rolled-up canvas, as I headed back for the terminus.
I said sheepishly, "I might try it for myself once the conference is over. Right now, it looks too… intense. I just don't want to be distracted. I have a job to do."
He faked bewilderment. "It's entirely your decision. You don't have to justify anything to anyone, here."
"Yeah, sure. And I've died and gone to heaven."
At the terminus, I hit the call button; the box predicted a ten-minute wait.
Munroe fell silent for a while. Then he said, "I suppose you have all the inside information about everyone attending the conference?"
I laughed. "Not exactly. But I'm sure I'm not missing out on much. Soap operas staring physicists are just as dull as any other kind; I really don't care who's screwing whom, or who's stealing whose brilliant ideas."
He frowned amiably. "Well, neither do I—but I wouldn't mind knowing if the rumor about Violet Mosala has any substance."
I hesitated. "Which rumor did you have in mind? There are so many." It sounded pitiful even as I said it; I might as well have come right out and admitted that I had no idea what he was talking about.
"There's only one serious question, isn't there?"
I shrugged. Munroe looked irritated, as if he believed I was being disingenuous, and not just trying to conceal my ignorance.
I said candidly, "Violet Mosala and I aren't exactly swapping intimate secrets. The way things are going, if I make it through to the end of the conference with decent coverage of all her public appearances, I'll count myself lucky. Even if I have to spend the next six months chasing her between appointments in Cape Town, trying to flesh things out."
Munroe nodded with grim satisfaction, like a cynic whose opinions had just been confirmed. "Cape Town? Right. Thanks."
"For what?"
He said, "I never believed it; I just wanted to hear it put to rest by someone in a position to be sure. Violet Mosala—Nobel-prize-winning physicist, inspiration to millions, twenty-first-century Einstein, architect of the TOE most likely to succeed… 'abandons' her home country— just when the peace in Natal is starting to look more solid than ever— not for Caltech, not for Bombay, not for CERN, not for Osaka… but to join the rabble on
"Not in a million years."
14
Back at the hotel, climbing the stairs to my room, I asked Sisyphus:
"Can you name a group of political activists—with the initials AC—who might have taken an interest in Violet Mosala emigrating to Stateless?"
"No."
"Come on! A is for anarchy… ?"
"There are two thousand and seventy-three organizations with 'anarchy' or a related word in their title, but they all contain more than two words."
"Okay." Maybe AC itself was shorthand, like US for USA. But then, if Munroe was to be believed, no serious anarchist would ever use the A-word.
I tried a different angle. "What about A for African, С for culture… with any number of other letters?"
"There are two hundred and seven matches."
I scrolled through the list; AC didn't seem like a plausible abbreviation for any of them. One name was familiar, though; I replayed a section of the audio log from the morning's press conference:
