Weir Annadetcall
Weir roused from the verge of a nap. His head nestled between his chair's back and its wing. His
body lay back lanquidly, feet lifted by the chair. What had stirred him? Would he never get the
chance to truly relax?
He dragged his gaze to the window-wall beside him. It stretched from the floor, curved past his
chair, and vaulted overhead. Through it, he saw that his train still rushed across plains, the
land nothing but grass thrashed by wind, the skies empty and washed-blue. No change from the
sameness that had lulled him toward sleep.
Something else then. He lifted his head to glance around his sitting-circle and noticed a drag of
deceleration. The train must be slowing from its cruise speed of just over a two-hundred-eighty
meters per second. Ganj Dareh so soon? But the landscape didn't look right. Ganj Dareh lay among
the rolling hills of the broad Missouri Valley with all that fey-banyan around it.
Seeking more evidence, Weir glanced overhead for lights announcing. Indeed, a circle of
emerald-green, brilliant and supposedly reassuring, raced along the top edge of the coach's clear
walls where they flattened out. A second blip followed closely, then a third.
Again? Another stop? Last time, they promised me a direct run to Ganj Dareh, a quiet time long
enough to settle in and ponder my life.
Just to make sure, Weir hauled himself to his feet, braced against the deceleration, and peered
across the train-coach. Paths of carpet connected sitting-circles throughout the oval car. They
led to seven transparent doors along the perimeter and to the dining alcove at the blunt back end.
Above it all, another trio of lights swept around the far curve of the sheer ceiling.
Weir squeezed his eyes shut to summon patience. The train announced a stop with that pattern of
lights, the third so far on these plains. Exasperated by further interruption, he stroked the
bridge of his nose. Maybe he wouldn't have to move this time. Maybe he could ignore the
interruption, but he'd had little success doing that.
Back on the coast, he had bid "auf Wiedersehen" to the Crew-in-Support, and he had dispatched the
Crew-for-Selling to trains like these. The party on-board, following the selection of crews, had
run late, full of bright hopes. Just an undercurrent thoughtful radiated from the vanguard who
would be taking as many different routes as possible across northern Popovich to Ganj Dareh. Even
that touch of a pattern for management — travel dispersed to minimize risk to the combine's
objective and maximize exposure to a new territory — spoke to the seriousness enhanced in the
project.
The Crew-in-Support were now cruising back to Continent Grissom, taking a rest well-earned,
thereafter continuing to practice for the job yet-to-be-won — when allowed by their duties
supporting the fourteen teams marketing to the Collective Ganj Dareh.
Disembarking with the Crew-for-Selling, Weir purposefully chose the empty coach at the head of the
first train, apart from two of the teams traveling with him, including his own. He wanted to watch
the continent swallow them. He wanted to become accustomed to his new environs without having to
interact with his people as their leader. He wanted to meditate on the past and rebuild his energy
before tackling the future.
These last two — almost three — days had sapped his strength — and liking for reality social —
and just about anything else having to be with being a tactician. The speech — the first of its
sort to this combine — back at the Center for Learning — Günter had been so right — the combine
had been so receptive. So receptive that he'd fallen into a mode of leading and interacting with
them so intense that he'd barely slept since then. No sleep while the combine gaggled themselves
on-board. No sleep while the combine evaluated itself during games. A little sleep while they
also slept. No sleep while making his own selections and roaming about as the combine made
theirs. No sleep during the final alignments of teams, support to selling.
He had to make himself ready for his future in Ganj Dareh, when it came sliding over that horizon.
And he wanted to sleep. So, he needed space around him, without the obligations of constituency.
Initially, it had worked. Weir watched, fascinated and alone, as the train left the coast and
plunged into rainforest temperate. Then, too soon, he waited in surprise as the train slowed. His
coordinator for travel had expressly booked all of the combine on nonstop trips, yet his train
braked into a drome deep among trees, red-ocher trunks towering over them, evergreen branches
concealing the sky. Then, he fled in disappointment to another car when the train inserted his
coach into the drome to accept passengers.
So far, they had taken on riders three times, added five full coaches to the train, and he'd moved
twice to avoid people. The last time, the train had promised no more stops before Ganj Dareh.
Weir did wonder what caused the changes in schedule, why the sudden need for extra stops, extra
cars. He hoped it had nothing to do with Ganj Dareh, yet fretted, just a little, that it did.
More importantly, he had an objective for this excursion, a goal that demanded solitude and enough
time to lose himself in thought, then find himself again, re-energized.
Just now, he had to know whether to pack up again. He opened his eyes, turned forward, and stared
at a spot above the door there. The sets of lights he had seen, one on each side of the coach,
raced towards that spot. If they passed through each other, he was safe. Instead, each colliding
pair of spots twisted slightly and faded, as though diving out through the wall, one, two, three.
That pattern meant: once again, Weir's coach would dock with the drome; people disembarking should
leave through the highlighted door; the other six doors would match up to portals in the drome and
receive passengers.
Annoyed, Weir whirled back to his chair. He snatched his bag off its back. He grabbed a
fictoplate from a seat pocket, where he'd stashed it as he dozed off, and rammed it into the bag.
He scanned the area, found nothing, and took a step. His sock feet, cool in the crush of carpet,
alerted him. Doubly aggravated, he fought the footrest out of the way, snagged his boots from
under the chair, and started off again.
Boosted by the gentle deceleration, Weir trotted across the sitting-circle he shared with no one,
the six soft chairs slightly staggered in a semi-circle, their shapes and textures varied to
attract different kinds of people. He brushed along the wall-like window. Grass-green swept by
his feet like seawater, yet sky-blue stood still high above. He scurried in front of another
vacant sitting-circle, then glanced around. The rest of the coach, filled with seat-backs like
stepping stones, showed only three other occupants. It was definitely their turn for loading. He
should've known.
He arrived at the forward door. The lights announcing still faded into the glass above it, as
though urging the train on. He added his bag to his boots in his left hand, then pushed on the
door's handle with his right. It didn't budge. He glanced through it into the next train-car's
dining alcove. Paneled in pale yellow with an abtract design in maroon, the narrow room stretched
the full width of the coach. It offered a variety of servers with prepared foods and drinks both
hot and cold. A tall woman, her back to Weir, closed a small door and clutching a sandwich,
hurried out of the alcove, leaving it empty. He had to get into that coach. He pushed on the door
again. Nothing. Puzzled, he twisted around to search for an explanation.
The floor trembled under his feet. He swayed and looked forward once more. Sunlight broke in from
the sides. The aero-smoothing skins surrounding the juncture between the coaches slid away.
Rippling landscape, green below and blue above, appeared, adding sudden speed to the sight.
Another tremor. Ahead of him, separate now and distinct, smooth and ten meters wide, the coach he
had looked into, and almost touched, drifted to the right gracefully and cleared the view directly
ahead.
A matte-black rail, combination support, guide, power collector, and conduit, sliced toward the
horizon. The tall grass, oblivious to the interruption, spread in all directions as it swayed to
its own music. Then, at the point where rail, plain, and sky merged, a sprinkle of rectangles
broke the natural reverie. The next drome.
Already irritated, piqued by the sight of their impending stop, Weir yearned after the other
coach. In pulling aside, it revealed and followed the rest of the train. Nine coaches running in
tandem, with fuselages transparent and glinting and frames of silver-gray ceramalloy, pulled aside
onto a short spur of rail, suddenly apparent, parallel and night-dark, in the grass. Sleek,
blended into one body for aerodynamics' sake, they started to fall back slowly, to allow the last
coach, his, to become first.
He'd seen this before, the train re-arranging itself at high speed, so it could present the coach
with the most vacancies. It would all come back together again. Perhaps he could change coaches
then, before deceleration final into the drome.
Weir took a moment to put on his boots, then traced the change in coach positions by pacing back
along the window-wall, like walking up a vague slope against the deceleration. He found himself
watching the other passengers as they passed alongside, just a coach's width away.
They filled every sitting-circle. Family groups carved out their space, mother and father sitting
alertly, children sprawled at their feet. Couples talked quietly, glancing with curiosity and some
reluctance around at the others. Groups of singletons hunched together, as though enduring
something he couldn't see. Some wandered in and out of the opaque dining alcoves. Several stood
together, chatting, among the chair clusters, as though seeking something to share.
Then, in the lead coach, a lone passenger, leaning into the train's slowing, gazed back at Weir.
He kept his back straight, yet his broad shoulders stooped slightly. He held his head averted, but
his eyes, dark-blue and deep-set, bored across the narrow interval of jumbled grass. He wore
plain, durable clothes. A rucksack of similar material rested against his leg. His boots looked
worn, yet sturdy and comfortable.
Weir wondered what had brought this youth to this moveable place, neither here nor there, but
traveling very quickly between them. He looked as if he had reached the Age of Passage from child
to adult. He would be leaving the home of his parents anyway, so, like Weir, had he left a rural
home to seek a place in a larger world with more chances and things to study? Had he felt drawn to
loftier harmonies, to a destiny greater than husbanding ipê trees? Had he rejected the Society for
Passage in his small direvnya? Had he surfed the vast choices of the Mirnaya Direvnya and won
admittance to another Society? Maybe in Ganj Dareh?
Weir continued to move back through his coach as the lone passenger fell farther and farther
behind.
Was that boy-turning-man now regretting his bravado? Was he reviewing his past, downgrading each
project he'd worked on, discounting each team he'd led? Were his guts stirring in rebellion? Were
his thoughts dispersing before the greatest challenge of his life?
A grimace passed over the youth's face. Weir sympathized. The youth swayed, and Weir realized
that the other coaches were swerving. The rail spur was ending, curving back to join the main
line. Once again, communal forces overwhelmed the individual. Societal inertia swept aside
personal desires and engulfed the person himself. Yes, Weir sympathized.
And stopped. The solid partition of the dining alcove formed a corner with the clear wall of the
coach and blocked him. Out of sight, the train aligned once more in single file; the coaches
reconnected. That slight tremble again, but no other remark.
Astounded once more, impressed again, he fumbled to compare the event to his experience. On
Continent Grissom, where Gatogrebok had staged this invasion competitive, on Continent Carpenter,
where he had grown up, Weir had never seen such facile choreography of massive objects at high
velocity, with people's lives — including his own — at stake. Then again, only Popovich and one
other continent set up patterns that depended so much on transportation public, begetting such
efficiencies.
How many other ways is Popovich strange? How many other traditions have I and my teams
overlooked? How often —
Something tapped his shoulder. Startled, Weir jerked his head toward it.
Ford McAdamson frowned back, his eyes brooding as usual. His curls, red-brown and unkempt, spilled
over his pallid forehead as though emphasizing his personal gravity. The man was a friend from
before Gatogrebok, important subordinate since the combine had formed, and now team-leader,
selected without need for Weir's vote to his great pleasure. Which role had brought him here?
Ford leaned forward and whispered, his lips barely moving, "Look at this." He held out an llevar.
Weir squeezed his eyes shut, then popped them open. Outside, grass flowed by without
interruption. Inside, everything seemed stable, normal. He looked down at the foilscreen propped
up in front of him.
It glowed with a message that began "Residents of Popovich, Har Norma Byukan presents a rendezvous
of futures, yours and ours." Partway through the message, Weir glanced up almost involuntarily and
envisioned the crowded coaches behind him. Explanation and dread tinted the image.
Looking back down, he read the message again, poked at its date-time, started his own frown when he
scanned the distribution, and raised his eyes to Ford. "What are your speculations?" He didn't
have to ask if from Ford.
Ford held up a hand. "First, let me say that none of this was going on when we left Direvnya
Gatogrebok. It did start—" he grimaced with chagrin "— while we were on the boat and I —" he
swallowed hard "— I didn't keep a regular check on things in that, uh, interval of time." He
added weakly, "Sorry."
"Any harm done?"
Ford wagged his head. No.
Weir grinned forgiveness. "What are your speculations?"
"Given that the labor capacity of the continent exceeds its need, and given the passenger load on
this train, extra cars, extra stops, I'd say 'migration by the masses' isn't overstating it."
"Too many people, too little work," Weir said. "I wonder what she's up to?"
"Who?"
"Har Norma Byukan."
Ford was silent. Weir could imagine him looking at statistics, capacities, impact on his mission,
but not wondering what their competition was planning. A surge of self-congratulations flared in
the back of his mind. Maybe he was ready for this tactician role, after all.
"We're lucky we made reservations," Ford said. "We're lucky we're moving now and no' ten or even
five days from now. We're lucky we've targeted communities in Ganj Dareh with the highest
employment because they will have supplies of gong-she housing that most exceed demand ... and
we'll have places to live—"
"Ford." The other man stopped. "We're no' 'lucky' here, Ford. We put together a robust plan that
accounted for margins and capacities. We're ahead of this wave of people because we put ourselves
there."
"We didn't know about this 'call to jobs.'"
"But we could tell the mitzrayims confined from the valleys open and scooted through the ones so we
could benefit from the others."
"Agreed."
Weir recalled the people — the natives — who filled the other coaches. He saw plain, decent
folks, no threat here and now, no threat later. Except for their numbers? He turned his thoughts
to Ganj Dareh and logistics there.
"Weir?" Ford interjected. "About our reservations."
"My thoughts exactly," Weir said.
"They're safe, by the way, most of them. I sent demand-response messages and got back
confirmations from all gong-she except the ones closest to the drome."
Worry pricked Weir. "Ford, you followed our pattern cautious when you chose a neighborhood for
your team?"
Ford nodded briefly, his green eyes steady on Weir.
Weir shifted his feet, but didn't look away. "I confess that I violated the pattern for my team."
He hurried to justify himself. "I wanted to be near the drome, and there did seem to be plenty of
housing vacant there. But now, you're saying, there's a problem?"
Ford nodded again, amusement showing subtly in new lines around his eyes, which didn't move.
Friend, subordinate, team-leader — and self-appointed conscience. "Not to worry, boss. I leaned
on them a bit, in a meeting/can-be-heard. They agreed to crowd in your team, for one night, two at
the most."
Weir narrowed his eyes in fake exasperation. "You seem to make that portable entrance of yours
work even if we are in the middle of nowhere."
Ford shrugged. "They provide lattice ports on each seat. No need to go out over the air with its
slower response time. Popovich isn't a backwater."
"No' when it comes to trains anyway. Didn't you find that maneuver with the coaches impressive?"
"Frustrating to the bones, actually." Ford tucked his llevar under his arm and grinned. "I'd
found this little tidbit from Norma. You weren't online. Off in tactician solitude or something.
I actually had to go zhuhndí with you and—" he lifted an eyebrow in appreciation for the ironies
of life "— they rip us apart! You in your car, me stuck off on the spur, watching you pull
ahead. I — uh-oh." He tilted his head to watch something overhead.
Weir followed his gaze. The lights announcing showed sapphire-yellow now; deceleration final
coming in two-hundred seconds. He said, "Better get to our chairs. But first—"
Concerns scrambled through Weir's mind. Fourteen teams in his Crew-for-Selling, scattered across
northern Popovich, made their ways through the continent's passenger channels. They planned to
sell directly to ten percent of Ganj Dareh's communities: walking their message door-to-door,
asking people to their clinics and treating them well there, talking up their offerings in cafés
and markets, offices and other workplaces, and town-halls. They would use indirect methods for the
rest of the direvnya, drawing attention to their efforts through new-business announcements and
live presentations in the Em-Deh and paper leaflets on doorsteps. Was that still wise? Would
there be a flood of these newcomers into their clinics, people with no jobs — and no votes? Would
his combine be able to differentiate themselves to the people who counted, the members of
Collective Ganj Dareh specifically? Would they —
Weir chopped through the tumult. The time for assessment had ended. He rummaged for action-items
and found precious little they could do in-transit — except more planning.
Decision made, he spoke rapidly to Ford, "When you get settled, contact the other team-leaders.
Point them to the Byukan-Hamil announcement. Ask for their reactions to it, speculations about how
it helps the competition, suggestions to change the project-plan, additional plans for
contingencies. Tell them what you're thinking — say I told you to. That should give them a good
start."
Ford smiled, showing that he appreciated the limelight, then dragged his lips straight again.
"Accepted."
"What do you think, Ford, encryption standard with mix-in of the team-leader key?"
"I think everybody ought to see this. We're all going to be rubbing elbows with the
crowds."
Crowds. Weir abruptly remembered his attempt to leave this coach. "Agreed," he said absently,
then added, "Any seats free in the other coaches?"
"None. I think your retreat is over, boss." Ford grinned. "Welcome back to reality." zhuhndí
reared its impertinent head again.
Weir smiled weakly, then gave the team-leader a faint shove as a token of thanks. "Get out of
here."
Ford turned away into the dining alcove and connection to the other cars. Weir eyed the nearest
sitting-circle, took a step toward it — and halted.
A pair of eyes, deep-set and dark-blue, weighed on him; he knew them to exist more in his mind than
that other coach. A youth, fresh off the ipê farm and troubled by destiny, disputed his handling
of Ford and Byukan-Hamil's announcement. That former Weir questioned this, the first decision in
enemy territory, as weak.
The current Weir returned the stare and answered silently, Over-react and lose your combine's faith
in you. A hint of Günter's rough voice seeped into the next words. Under-react and gain
perspective and a chance to improve. He felt disapproval continue. I know I'm in charge. They
know I'm in charge. No learning will be gained from rubbing their noses in it. The surety of that
truth fed back confidence.
I know what I'm doing, Weir told himself. I have learned from the best. I have the support of my
combine, of my strategist Günter, and everybody else in his whole organization across eight
continents.
Let me explain.
The lights announcing continued their warning. Weir trotted to a chair by the window and slipped
into it. The tall grass outside moved past at a perceptibly slower pace. The next drome felt
palpably closer, but now, no alarm stirred in him. Instead, Weir felt a story coming on, the kind
he told to himself. Somehow, he'd reached the brink of finding himself despite all the
interruptions.
I remember, before I left home, studying in the Em-Deh. At times, I used our entrance private to
survey our jungle from altitude, rising higher and higher virtually until that overwhelming
abundance of life just outside my door blurred into a vast stretch of greens variegated, until it
became nothing more than a wash of watercolor, drowning everything north of Continent Carpenter's
waist. That picture made promises to me, promises of a physical reality, complete with cultural
and visceral components, zhuhndí places and people where my ideas, my words, my presence would
change things. While right outside, that jungle just never listened to me.
The Age of Passage gave me a perfect time to go find out if those other places would listen
to me. I had to leave home anyway. Why no' leave the jungle at the same time? After considerable
study, I selected the Dutch John Society for Passage in Nunavut, the Prime Direvnya in all of
southern Carpenter, the most urban place on the whole continent.
At Dutch John, I discovered that though I was the first to leave my direvnya in several years, I
wasn't the only yokel to arrive in the big city that year, or any year, for that matter. It was
the first step in my progression, though, a progression I continue to pursue.
After I managed to outgrow you — no, wait. Rewrite. Let's make that:
Oh, I did have to outgrow that rube cockiness — na‹ve, head full of learning virtual, convinced I
understood the world and the ways of its peoples diverse — you know, the attitude that led you to
challenge my decision with Ford. How — no' 'wrong,' but as I said before, 'na‹ve' — how na‹ve I
was then, when I was you.
Yes, that was better. Where was I?
I found that I enjoyed the process of refinement. I took a special pleasure in selecting my path
for growth. That initial na‹veté of mine, for instance, was no' altogether wrong. I isolated the
'ignorance' in it and replaced that with 'learning,' perpetual learning. I perceived 'innocence'
and matched it with Zen's 'beginner's mind' and cherished it, though it's harder to protect every
year.
I had so much to learn. I did my best, no' just in my studies, but also in life beyond the
Society. So that, in my last year, when they introduced the Theory of Pattern Languages, I could
almost understand what they were talking about. Patterns, of course, abound in our lives. We
learn them, we obey them, but do we really understand them? Most people don't, I guess. I did,
enough to realize that those dreams I had in the jungle, about no' just surviving, about no' just
living everyday life, but about directing the course of events and communities — like Ma and Pa
tried to do in their cultivation of ipê trees — those dreams were possible, if I could refine my
understanding of patterns and their practical application.
Right after graduation, Pa gave me my first chance to play in adult life by my own version of the
rules. No, he didn't want me to come home; my older siblings, Cristiana and Jakob, were settling
down to the family business. He needed me out in the world to lead a combine. I took his start-up
money, gathered a few people, and tried to develop new distribution and sales channels for a
variety of ipê that he had developed, more flexible than the natural wood, yet close to the same
density and just as durable.
Did I say I had outgrown my cockiness? Hardly. I just raised it to a new level — refined it, you
might say. With an infoplate of pattern languages under my arm, I sauntered out into the world as
if I really knew its secrets. And it answered back, promptly, smartly, and thoroughly. I do have
talent, though, for improvement, for learning wisely. I lost most of my appreciation academic for
patterns in the process, gained an appreciation pragmatic for a subset — and launched a new
business for Pa in the process. I also demonstrated enough style to attract Gatogrebok's
attention.
Günter himself talked to me, on a gentle walk through a park — the most invigorating moments of my
life! He left me in Nunavut as team-leader apprentice for one of the Con-Hominium's projects.
Then, he pushed me into a combine of smart, fast, proud iconoclasts, engineers and sellers and
coordinators too good to waste and too insolent to blend with procedures normal. Celestial Singer,
such a time! After that, he pulled me to Grissom, to study with him and regain those patterns lost
to life's friction, and gradually, to assume the role of tactician over this combine.
The lights overhead glowed ruby-red.
There's a flow to this work, similar to what an artist feels when he is locked in creative combat
with a slab of sandstone or with a pulsing cursor on a blank screen. Only, my canvas covers the
entire realm of human experience, of human change and improvement. Each day, I translate patterns
and objectives into tasks and instructions. Each day, I winnow events and attitudes to decipher
their trends and compliance. Each day, I move myself closer to understanding the universe, so that
I can coax or trick or blast it into supporting the people and concepts I believe in. Some would
call this "power." I just call it "accomplishment."
He nodded in salute, to the real youth in a coach behind him, to the others traveling with them, to
each individual in the Collective he was going to win over, then serve.
All of that will come together in Ganj Dareh, he promised. Your suffering, your poverty, your
unemployment, all are unnecessary. Your leaders have failed you. Together — if I have
anything to do with it — we shall restore your lives to the patterns of richness and fulfillment
you deserve.
And if my confidence doesn't always reach as high as my ambition, what of it? I'll work it out.
His chair swivelled to face backward. The train decelerated hard. Weir grinned as he sank into
the chair. He was actually curious to see who would come aboard at this drome.
