Weir Annadetcall
Another clinic — Ann-Lin's — in a neighborhood far from Skeinswift, another late-afternoon
meeting/can-be-felt, a reminder that he was responsible for all these teams, another
get-together with thirteen of the best people he'd ever worked with.
This time, they gathered in an outdoor room feathered with the fan-like leaves of kras¡ vines. The
holoscreen occupied a corner closed-in at the threshold to the building itself, a structure
rambling with enough room for clinic and the team's quarters. Through the holoscreen, they saw the
tidy office of a man, petite and meticulous, who had been guiding their marketing campaign.
"I've been wandering the Ganj-Dareh section of the Mirnaya Direvnya," the marketeer enunciated
precisely. "These service discontinuities, you have them often?"
"Ever since we got here," Ann-Lin answered as team-leader responsible for the can-see. "And it
seems to be getting worse."
"I completed my assessment with little extra effort, but they are disconcerting."
"Tell us about it. What did you discover?" Ann-Lin put the man back on point. Weir gave her a
nod of appreciation.
"I went with Street-Windows turned on." The marketeer fluttered his fingers. "So that I was aware
of all the virtual comings and goings of the populace. Very few travel likewise, though I did have
some interesting conversations with the ones I encountered."
"What about Ad-Aware?" Han asked. "How many turn that on?"
"About average really — 38.72% — so I suggest that you spend some money in that direction. From
my perusal of advertisements already out there, I suggest a plain, direct campaign — these people
seem quite informal, compared to other continents, like Gagarin, Schirra, even Shepard — yet with
some spark of wit."
"Wit?" asked Ann-Lin, somewhat drily.
"Oh, something like riddles, asked in one place, answered in another. Or, a series of signs that
are small and comprise a poem or limerick."
"Stubbed your toe against a rock?" Ann-Lin started.
"Took a splinter from a dock?" chimed in Martin.
"Clinic line around the block?"
"Then select Gatogrebok!" they all shouted.
"Exactly," said the consultant. He peered closely at them through his holoscreen. "You do seem to
be adapting well over there."
"How about soliciting directly?" Weir asked.
"Agreed. I think messages, customized by community and coming from a clinic nearby, would gather
attention for you, incremental and positive. Of course, you must specify the recipient's
Unsolicited Queue only. To do otherwise would be rude."
"Besides, you might piss somebody off!" Camp said with a guffaw.
Weir carefully kept his eyes on the holoscreen and let the lack of support from the rest of the
group dampen the laugher's self-appreciation.
"Agreed, I, uh, I guess," the consultant went on.
"How about hardcopy distribution?" Ford asked.
"Hmm? Hardcopy? I really hadn't thought about that approach, but I think it would work very much
like electronic distribution, though I would check the local Pattern Language in case they
discourage it. A stranger coming to your home with an advertisement? Well, I guess the fact that
they don't know you works a lot like Unsolicited Queue. All they have to do is say 'No' or recycle
the hardcopy. Sure, try it."
"Thanks. Of course, I have to find someone to deliver the hardcopy around town. Friendly and
reliable, the combines around here aren't."
"Ford," Weir said. "Try this Rendezvous-of-Futures. Maybe they can provide some dayjobbers
willing to work between training sessions."
"Good idea." Ford settled back as though done with the topic.
Berl shot a hand into the air. "Let's blitz-sprache." Her voice, normally soft and pleasant, rang
hard with defiance of group and expert pressure. She glared at the holoscreen.
Weir felt the consultant's eyes, begging for relief from Berl's persistence. He resisted their
pull. Earn your fee, he wanted to tell the adviser distant, but didn't. Nor did he influence Berl
with a look, supportive or otherwise. Wait to see if she spends our time wisely on a subject 'worn
too slack to limp,' as we used to say on the farm.
"Berl," said the marketeer with exaggerated patience. "We settled this back on Grissom. You
cannot open a hard shell with a mallet, not without damaging its contents, and maybe yourself, in
the process. You must rub, erode, etch your way inwards, carefully exposing those inside to
newness."
"Yeah, but—"
The consultant rode over Berl's interruption like a plodding tsunami. "Byukan-Hamil, over the
years, has hardened patterns in Ganj Dareh till they are so rigid, so bone-like, that a
'lightning-speech' campaign, with lots of noise and pressure — like you have continued to advocate
— would surely fail."
"Yeah-but." So perfunctory as to be rude.
"Instead, you must depend on the rapidity of data-flow within a modern community, the speed of
gossip aided by the Community-Connection Pattern. You must rely on the readiness of the people of
Ganj Dareh to seek new answers to the problems caused by BH's arrogance and neglect. You must
trust to the quality of your service offerings to insinuate their way through a husk built over
years out of habit and prejudice."
Weir noted the man's rhetorical triplet, a climax typical of his speechs, and delightedly heard
Berl's leap into the lee of its passing.
"What about Die Gastarbeiter?" she spat.
"Who?" hiccupped the consultant.
"The unemployed flooding the town," Berl shot back. "They're chasing Har Norma's promise of jobs,
dropping by our clinics, using up our time and supplies. They can't vote
on the anshin contract because they don't
belong to the Collective Ganj-Dareh any
more than we do. They're making so much noise in the system that
the Collective won't hear our whisper campaign. 'Depend,' 'rely,' and 'trust' on that."
Weir remembered having this worry on the train to Ganj Dareh. Somehow, he'd lost it in the swirl
of preparations. Good for Berl to bring it up.
"Is this true?" the marketeer asked Weir.
"Consensus," Weir ordered in answer. He let the team-leaders tell with a show of hands. He hadn't
noticed many Gastarbeiter at his clinic, so he sat still.
Three supported Berl, Han and Desch definitely, Camp with a timid wave.
"Any pattern there?" Weir asked the four of them.
"Cross-town trolley routes. They come to our four communities straight from the drome," Berl said
with a defensive fillip. "I've already checked with the others." She eased off, though, when she
added, "I can't figure your clinic, Weir. Right by the drome, you should be hit more than the rest
of us."
Weir racked his shoulders back in surprise. So hard to notice what isn't there. "I don't know,"
he admitted. "I'll have to check on that." The question wasn't 'Why no Gastarbeiter?' Obviously
because Skeinswift had no gong-she. Why didn't The Tangent want gong she — and its residents —
around their neighborhood? A thrill electric crawled up his spine. Did The Tangent hide secrets
other than a Pattern Language? Which came first, the secrets or the patterns to hide them?
On Yeibichai, people had no good reason to have secrets. Privacy, yes; secrets, no. The
difference was lying to protect them.
The consultant intruded, "Master Annadetcall, I do not see enough impact to alter our strategies.
We don't have to do anything about, uh, 'Die Gastarbeiter' yet."
The prospect of a major change boiled through Weir, engulfing his outlook, sapping his energy.
Delegate, he could almost hear Günter growl. Reward passion with responsibility, then demand
action.
"Berl." Weir fixed the team-leader with an intent look and a grin. She met him with an identical
expression, though her grin hinted at triumph. "Watch the impact Gastarbeiter on our resources.
Bring it to our attention when it reaches, uh ..."
"Sixty-five percent," offered the consultant.
"Thirty percent," insisted Berl.
Weir fought a flinch — too much exposure, too little time, too deep in current tasks — a flinch
to hide from the new demand. "Thirty-five percent," he said, then added brusquely. "Let's
proceed with other discussion."
"My agenda ..." The marketeer cleared petulance from his voice. "My agenda does include another
topic."
"Proceed," Weir instructed.
"Another forum sometimes used to acquaint your new constituency with your existence is the news."
Weir looked around uneasily. "We could do interviews?" he asked as he envisioned another leech
fastening onto his sparetime already emaciated.
"Ordinarily, I would agree, but I have contacted the packagers, analysts, and commentators who are
most active around Yeibichai. They do relatively little business in your part of the world. The
most successful one — based on his financial statement — characterized the Collective Popovich as
people who generally watch news seldom and pay even less attention. His customers on the continent
tend to be combines that sell worldwide plus teachers of current-events.
"So no, I have to withhold a recommendation for this use of your time."
Weir sagged with relief.
"However," continued the consultant with a finger raised imperiously. "There is a comparable
venue: meetings/will-be-heard."
"Everybody's got those," Kam retorted.
"Agreed, such meetings are very popular around our fair globe. However, in the dearth of news
preparers, and acknowledging that people on Popovich like to 'poke their own noses' into things,
these exchanges of opinion, observation, and consensus become much more important. Still, there is
one significant obstacle."
"You have to be a member of Collective Ganj Dareh to participate in their will-hears." Ford
unrolled the pre-emption drily.
"Yes, indeed. All will-hears have similar restrictions."
"Somebody could declare intent to reside," suggested Grove. "What's the period before acceptance
is possible?"
"Thirty days."
"Oops."
"Besides, you have to be on a payroll of a combine registered here to join the Collective, and
we're not — yet."
Weir recalled Foxfire. "We could hire someone from Ganj Dareh."
"Yeah, like a proselytizer. Hear ye, hear ye, and all that," Steg jumped in.
"Such things are frowned upon," scolded the consultant. "In all such meetings."
"Agreed," Weir said with more energy. He drew himself forward in his chair. "Someone who, maybe,
isn't a proselyte, but is willing to air our case in their forum private."
"Do you have someone in mind, Master Annadetcall?" said the consultant.
"Agreed." Weir explained about his liaison with Neighborhood Skeinswift. This gives me an action
item — an excuse — to find out more about The Tangent. Spend more time on queries for my
agent-of-limited-questions to run. Yesterday's try with just "The Tangent" as search criteria had
produced nothing he hadn't already known. I need to fester more eloquently than that to trick the
good data-stuff out of the Em-Deh — especially if The Tangent is keeping secrets.
The consultant was giving instructions again. "I do suggest that you do encourage this young-woman
to not, ahhh, advocate your services. The point of your campaign — as I said before —
must be awareness, not conversion."
"Die Gastarbeiter," growled Berl.
With shrill insistence, the consultant continued, "It should be your services themselves that
provide the conversion, which leads to recommendation, which leads to increased business, and so
forth. The campaign is strongest when you do not have to drive — or fund — it
yourselves."
This direct reminder of their challenge stilled all tongues. Silence fell upon the assembly like a
ghostly resident who had been fended off too long. The susurration of the kras¡ hushed her guests
insistently. The shivering of those same leaves was the wake of the passing of her body. And the
rays slanting down from the dying suns were hints of the same body, palsied and diaphanous.
"Anything else?" Weir asked softly of the image holographic.
"No. I will, of course, monitor your messages and their results and inform you of your progress or
lack thereof. We need converse only if you have questions that are more specific."
"Thank you."
"Good night."
"Great place you got here, Ann-Lin," Weir said, once the consultant's image had left them.
The chorus of agreement was soft, but heartfelt.
