Weir Annadetcall
The qi-che trundled around a cul-de-sac, a nub at the end of a green street also covered in grass.
The vehicle bounced a little between paving stones and halted. Weir hopped down, and the mini-bus
went on its way. He surveyed Ehangwen Center. Promenades and buildings radiated like alternating
spokes out from the circle. Somewhere in here Okra was taking a meeting. Weir hoped to piggyback
his own can-feel with the man.
A gamut of meadow tones invited him into the Center. They ranged from creek-grass, yellowish and
timid, to ipê-leaf, guttural and brash, with complementary brown outcroppings of crumbly
sandstone. Together, the colors teemed and danced and wandered in their many shapes. They implied
that much went on inside the Center, both on the walkways open and in the offices secluded.
The promenades themselves invited conversations intimate, business and personal, or reflection
solitary: wide, comfortable, with trees, shrubs, and flowers artfully arranged to enclose
different types of sitting places and break up the line-of-sight. People moved easily among them
while leaves welcomed a southerly breeze with stately waves.
The buildings harbored serious work, complementing the promenades: mostly square, varying from one
to four stories in modest shifts of elevation. The Knight of Elizabeth, footing one of the taller
sets of offices, fit in with the motif despite its Union Jack wagging over the door and the lace
curtains lidding its spread of windows.
Weir stepped into the café. A frenzy of shapes and hues greeted him from the walls cluttered with
shelves in turn cluttered with knick-knacks. A less frantic but still rich mix of smells earthy
caught his attention next.
He'd grown up with chai, a rather proper drink from-Roossija with little variation. He'd heard of
its cousin called "tea" in from-England, or its earlier version "t'e" in from-Zhongguo, but he'd
never understood its variety before, made clear abruptly in these scents marvelous. Another
surprise about something he thought he knew? That insight echoed off his encounter with Foxfire
earlier. Would he be able to synthesize it all, ingesting and building on it?
Slightly off-balance, Weir scanned the room, looking for Okra. Just a few patrons for this
mid-afternoon. There, at the second table, his back to the entrance, The Tangent's tactician sat
with —
Chief of Anshin Doyle Phoebe Heejanus! Weir recognized her face immediately, though it appeared
haggard under its intense expression. He'd studied her career impressive, her steady rise through
Ganj Dareh's anshin combine. He often wondered whether her background in counseling accounted for
her remarkable success, especially on Byukan-Hamil's budget threadbare. He didn't measure success
according to her promotions, but with metrics connoting quality-of-life for her customers, measures
like low levels of violence in the homes as well as paths, like rates declining in disease chronic
and of faster recovery from traumas in clinics, like —
Chief Heejanus caught Weir's gaze and clamped on it like a vise. She cut off her words to Okra,
rising grimly from her chair, her shoulders hunched and her fists tight over the tabletop. She
flashed back to Okra and huffed out some words, her chest heaving each phrase at the seated man.
With a final slash of her hand between them, she broke away and marched directly toward Weir,
though her eyes never engaged his again. Astounded, he had to duck aside lest she take him hard
with one of her square shoulders. He heard the frontdoor open while he tangled with a chair,
spindly and awkward. He looked up in time to see her turn sharply right on the path outside and
disappear behind a hedge of rose-of-Sharon.
Weir could make no complete reaction. Each feeling, each thought stuttered itself apart while
trying to capture the moment. At a loss, he turned to see Okra half-standing, caught between
another of those stupid chairs and the table's top of marble. The other tactician's face, long
already, sagged while emotions flitted across it. Finally, Okra dropped back down and guffawed, a
blast of disbelief that segued into barks of laughter.
Intrigued now, Weir strode over there, snagged a chair from another table, aimed its back at Okra,
and straddled it. However, "What's going on?" was the best he could do to start their
conversation.
"Well, there goes another cusp, smashed into a terminus by coincidence!" Okra declared, suddenly
sober again.
"Explain."
"I've been trying to appease our Chief Heejanus, stalling her off without shutting her out. You
know the kind of thing: where you don't want to dance, but the lady's bigger than you. She's
intent on merging my health and safety operations with hers, and I don't want to do that, not when
I've started things with you."
"That's what I came to talk to you about. I—"
Okra spat out a sound, part laugh, part curse. "She was already sort of convinced I was helping
you out, something I was trying to deny without really committing myself to her, when you walk in,
bright and bold and convincing. Boom! End of negotiation. So she withdrew her constables from my
neighborhood boundaries. What's more, she terminated reciprocity: she won't call me and I can't
call her, even if I do need help." He twisted around to send a puzzled look out the frontdoor.
"Maybe it's for the best." He peered over at Weir. "Then again, maybe not."
"Pardon me." Another voice from across the table.
Weir looked up. A man, portly, hands laid together in namaste, gray hair and goatee, striped
suspenders, garters, prayed over them.
"Master Annadetcall, I am Phi Lofarns Worthtv, proprietor. Welcome to Ganj Dareh! May I serve you
something?"
"What? No!" Weir's dismissal joined Okra's wave in sending the unctuous man away, but not before
he added, "Just call if you want something!"
Afraid of more delay, Weir told Okra, "I must know more about you before I can go any further. You
and Neighborhood Skeinswift ... and The Tangent."
Okra grinned, settled back, and opened his arms. "What do you want to know?"
"Your secrets."
The arms, spread in invitation, dove back together, scuttling the offer. "What secrets?"
Weir stretched to the tabletop, white, cool, and smooth. He drew with his fingertip: an arc, a
line taking off to the right, another circle, small and complete, at the end of it.
"Our Circle is not a secret," said Okra.
"The patterns public of Ammaerln House-row don't show it."
"Oh, that." An expression of utmost seriousness took over Okra's face, a relaxing of features
surrounding eyes most intense, dry and blink-less. After a moment of staring, Okra let his lids
droop as though signaling caution. "What do you already know about The Tangent?" he asked
quietly.
"Nothing!" Weir exploded. Frustrated, he rose from his seat, but found nowhere else to go; he
dropped back. "And I've looked! I've sullied the Em-Deh with all manner of agents, public and
proprietary. I've consumed untolled cycles punching holes of inquiry in every coag and
meeting/database I have access to." He pinned Okra with a look meaningful, hoping to intimidate or
at least impress. "And as a tactician for Gatogrebok, I possess broad fiducia. Yet ..." He
turned up his palms, empty. "Tidbits. Not even enough to build worthy queries of extrapolation."
Weir clenched his hands. "You hide yourselves well. That's why I say 'secrets' and not just
'privacy.'"
"Glory in the Lord," Okra whispered. Weir had heard Foxfire use this phrase often, but it sounded
different this time, like a supplication. Then, the other tactician folded himself forward,
converting aloofness into appeal. "Our sodality seeks only to be left alone, free to pursue our
Lives within the Lord as we see fit, free from persecution."
"Persecution?" More than surprised this time, Weir had to ask, "On Yeibichai?"
Okra straightened. He nodded sadly. "Even on Yeibichai. Our global patterns acknowledge that our
differences can stand only so much exposure. That's one reason why they define direvnya no smaller
than a neighborhood." He seemed about to go on, but didn't.
Weir absorbed the insight whole, played it against his understanding of Yeibichai's patterns, and
found that it filled a chink in the "why."
The telling of patterns followed a structure: connect with specific higher patterns, observe a
portion of life among people, explain why they acted or felt that way, prescribe support for this
aspect, and connect with specific lower patterns. These aphorisms always seemed clear, complete,
and wise, but recently, Weir had caught out implications, threads unstated and running behind some
of the patterns, like when he'd divined the power of the assembly hall at the Center for Learning
back in Direvnya Gatogrebok. These revelations never undermined the Pattern Language; rather, they
emphasized how well the Founders understood people, their good and their bad.
Like now: no Pattern Language prescribed any unit for like-minded individuals smaller than a
neighborhood; below that, the patterns worked on the architecture of houses, fitting them to
families of various kinds, to individuals, and to their surroundings. Now Weir understood why:
people's capacity for good had its limits.
But just where do those limits fall? The suspicion of secrets still rankled Weir. Who have I
gotten myself involved with? he asked himself once more.
Then he turned it on Okra, like he'd come here to do. "How different are you?"
The other man, tall and gangly, showed open palms again, along with a slight lifting of his
shoulders, as if to say, "How different could we be?"
Weir waited.
Okra essayed a smile. "Every grouping of our houses in our neighborhoods, in Ganj Dareh and eight
other direvnya on three continents, contains a chapel, a separate, complete house devoted to
worship and fellowship. We add an extra Community-Connection to each chapel and run Our Circle
over it. We buy bandwidth from the Em-Deh, then encrypt our signal within that." He broadened the
smile. "We're pretty good at that." He shrugged. "We stay in touch that way ... privately. We
worship. We teach our young and each other. We discuss our daily lives, successes and failures.
We plan for the future. Not that different from anybody else. We just do it in the context of our
Life within the Lord, which is different from everybody else.
"We don't publish that extra port because we don't like to emphasize that difference any more than
we have to. When we had to close down Ammaerln House as a chapel, we left the port, hoping to
reclaim it one day. When you wanted to rent it, I just hoped you'd never look behind that
wallpaper. Now that you have ..." He shrugged as if to say, "C'est la vie."
If Yeibichai emphasized any tolerance besides racial, it was religious. Weir appreciated it
personally. Decidedly irreligious, he didn't want anyone telling him he was wrong. He could
understand how a people as fervent as The Tangent could be even more vulnerable to those feelings.
However, they did owe something to Yeibichai's ways.
"I think you take it too far," he said.
Okra nodded. "We began our traditions back on Gë, where we had good cause for caution. Perhaps we
could loosen things up here, but ..." He shrugged again. "These things take time. I'm sorry."
"Accepted." Weir found himself nodding as well. "Accepted." He understood Okra and his people
better now, not as conspirators hiding things evil, but as zealots, intelligent, hard-working,
paranoid, maybe even more reliable because of their zeal. He recognized their pattern as very
real, very human.
Abruptly, he saw his suspicions as his own ploy to mask reality, a decoy he had conjured to
distract himself from his true vulnerability: his project was running on-time, on-budget; his
people, in Ganj Dareh, back in Gatogrebok, his advisors around the world, were tracking well. Any
change in their situation would sap that momentum. Any increase in demand or any loss in support
local would distract them during this crucial time. Practically anything new or different would
endanger their ability to deliver a winning proposal on time. He feared something would go wrong.
Inherent in the job, he guessed: tacticians worried most when things were going well.
Now he could no longer distract himself from that fear gnawing and tireless. The Tangent no longer
presented itself as bogeyman worthy of probes and schemes. So, he'd need some other way to handle
this part of a tactician's life. He'd —
Okra leaned forward. His clasped hands nudged Weir's.
"Huh?" Weir came back to the tea shoppe.
Okra's eyes sparkled now. He too had taken a new path of thought. "Let's talk then," he said.
"I'm going to need your help."
Weir eased away. He'd dismissed The Tangent from his pattern of worries. He didn't want them
coming back in. "What kind? How much? How soon?"
"Constables."
"Patrolling your paths?" Weir asked in surprise.
Okra reared slightly at that. "No!" He quirked a self-deprecating smile. "I've got that covered,
always have, always will. The chief couldn't seem to accept that. No, let me put it this way: I
may need backup constables in the boundaries around our neighborhood.
"You know. According to the SubCulture-Boundary Pattern, 'Separate neighboring subcultures with a
swath of land at least 70 meters wide. Let this boundary be natural — wilderness, farmland, water
— or man-made — railroads, major roads, parks, schools, some housing. Along the seam between two
subcultures, build meeting places, shared functions, touching each neighborhood. They will begin
to give life to the subcultures between the boundaries, by giving them a chance to be themselves.'
"We prefer the 'natural' option, but that hasn't kept Pugwash, Hajdú-Bihar, and Wielkopolska
Neighborhoods from filling in with 'meeting places,' taverns, dance halls, and so on. Which
attracts idle hands seeking a playground. Like Die Gastarbeiter.
"If things keep up like yesterday, Incidents on our boundaries could very well exceed my capacity
to respond, administer, and process. Though I did feel like a wallflower at the neighborhood
dance, only they were fighting on the dance floor, not dancing." He knitted a sudden frown of
uncertainty. "Do you think the Chief meant I can't use her detention cells anymore? I really
don't have any of my own." He segued to an odd look, sent straight into Weir's eyes: pride,
humility, and some part of I-told-you-so. "Within The Tangent, we can work out anything. At the
worst, I can just send someone to their room, er, their home, and tell them to stay there.
"You do have people back home you could bring over, don't you?" Okra flipped over a hand open to
receive a boon.
Weir resisted a quick response because he didn't know what part of that little speech to respond to
first. Okra had never unloaded like that before. Weir parked a frown quizzical on his forehead
and a smile inscrutable on his lips and tried to poke through the screen of Okra's words.
He appreciated someone who spoke to patterns, could even quote them. He recognized a spirit
kindred, felt their bond quickening with that rapport. However, he didn't like the direction Okra
was taking, toward quid-pro-quo, toward more than a contractor-client relationship.
The gap in the conversation loomed, pressing Weir to say something. Perhaps downplaying the need
for help?
"I've an agent tracking Incidents today." I'm not going to be caught ignorant about the 'city
around me' again. Albina Washburn's smug intonation echoed in his mind. "They've slacked off.
Yesterday did not start a trend." He waved a dismissal. "I'm not worrying about it."
"Perhaps I can deputize some of the people who were working with you," Okra mused as though unaware
of Weir's optimism. Then, he dropped his stare back to their table. "You've got your clinics up
and running, right? You don't need my help anymore, do you?"
A chill twinged Weir's neck hairline, a prickle of warning. Fresh from his thoughts just moments
ago, the worry-making truth about his dependence on The Tangent. All of his local trade went
through Okra. No BH combine would do business with them.
Future possible added to the icy touch: Is this what things will be like if we win the anshin
contract? Will BH continue to stonewall even against a fait accompli? Was The Tangent the only
independent in Ganj Dareh? Should I risk losing their relationship? Can I stand losing out on
everything they supply now? Should I rue the watershed of fate I created when I pursued Skeinswift
from Vallon Café instead of moving to another neighborhood?
Of course not: the past is immutable, not prone to influence by second-guessing. The future can
change, but only by present action.
"Okra ..." Weir began, then another realization crawled like a muck-worm up his neck: Okra was
playing him like an expert hustler, responding to every query with an open, apparently honest
answer, but they all led in a specific direction, toward Okra's agenda. Even this last act as a
distracted and worried tactician enabled him to ignore contrary data.
What about Okra's insight into patterns? It had neatly impressed Weir and stopped any skepticism
about The Tangent's paranoia. Had Okra fooled him with that insight? Was it any less true because
it worked his agenda? Am I wrong to buy into it? Weir looked inside himself, at the skein of
truths represented by patterns, at the way this skein flowed into his own being, their warp to his
woof, a complement that continually delighted and reassured him. No, the bon mot fit; it felt
true. Which meant Okra had to be brilliant to stuff such a well-fitting thumb into one of the few
cracks left in the levee against anarchy provided by Pattern Languages.
Do I want to be "right" and stomp away with indignation? Or do I want to get what I want: a
smooth track till we deliver that proposal?
Get what I want, of course, but I can at least let him know I know.
"Okra, you're playing me like a fiddler at a hoe-down."
Okra pulled a face full of contrition. "You're right." Then he filled his face with another grin
that drew lines of cheer all over it, and he laid those hands, bony and long, palm-up and empty on
the table. "I've never lied to you. I've always made clear what I want out of all this: a
binding business commitment from Gatogrebok to The Tangent, an acknowledgment not only of our
diligence and quality, but also a commitment to a future. I'm looking beyond these petty services
here and now — and we're glad to help you out and earn some Geld in the process. I'm looking at a
mutually profitable relationship around our picoturization products and services.
"Gatogrebok's influence extends all over Yeibichai; I want to flow along those conduits. I
actually have an easier time working interstellar business than on my own planet because I'm stuck
in this boneyard that BH runs on Popovich. You're my ticket out of lean times for my people. I'm
just helping you to see that you'll benefit as well.
"Now, do you have constables that can help me or not?"
Pricked, Weir flared, "Of course. Over a hundred cadre. Can you pay for them?" The challenge
pleased him,
Okra shrank his grin, but kept it simmering. "You want pay for contingency? What do they earn
sitting on their haunches back on Grissom?"
Nothing. All of us chew up Gatogrebok's profit on the hope of winning new business. And Okra
knows that. Weir yielded the point with, "What kind of response time are you expecting?"
"How quickly can you get them here?"
Weir wagged a finger to deflect the question.
This time, Okra yielded. "Using yesterday as a model, I would probably know thirty-kay seconds
ahead of time."
Weir slid open his llevar, checked schedules for air transport. "We can probably make that.
Twenty constables at a time." Then he added a daring gambit: "We'll set the fee when you call."
Okra would be wise to fight this, since need sapped leverage during a negotiation. However, Weir
had nothing to lose by trying.
"Deal!" Okra offered a hand and a revitalized grin. "I feel better already. Let's celebrate."
He raised his hand in a hail. "Innkeeper!"
Too easy. Doesn't Okra think it'll ever become an issue? What does he know that I don't? What
secret protects him?
Phi Lofarns arrived almost instantly. "Yessir."
"We're celebrating. Do you have anything stronger than tea?"
"Oui, m'sieu. I offer Cognac."
"Local or from-Gë?"
"Local, of course, but I do offer from-Gë as well. M'sieu is aware of the expense?"
"Gatogrebok's paying! Is it from-France?"
"Mais oui."
"Now we're getting somewhere."
Phi Lofarns gestured back toward his counter for serving. "Would m'sieu wish to peruse my
selection?"
Okra rose with a gesture of beckoning. "Weir?"
Shocked a little by this sign of entanglement and the Geld hit that was ensuing and other
things, Weir waved Okra on.
"Are you familiar with Cognac, son?" The question slipped gently from the tall man who now towered
over him.
"Not really. I do like a good merlot, always local though."
"Ah, another chance to grow! I'll be back in a moment and guide you through a whole new realm of
appreciation."
O such a day, ceaseless with surprise, merciless with knowledge. His bladder gave him an excuse
for privacy. "I, uh, I'm going to relieve myself."
Okra flapped a hand toward the back of the shoppe. "Sure. Meet you back here." He turned toward
Phi Lofarns. "Lay on, MacDuff."
Weir gathered his feet and pushed them into a march, unsteady but decisive. Off a back corner, an
alcove offered three narrow doors: one with a circle-and-slash denied entry to patrons; two
carried figurines of china, one standing demurely, arms crossed, the other sitting primly on air.
Weir chose to stand, pulled that door open, and stepped inside. The chamber, curved and snug,
offered two niches, one stretched below, equipped for urination by male or female, one chest-high
for sanitizing his hands afterwards.
He opened his fly, made himself ready, and released his stream. The relief sent shivers down his
spine and a sigh out of his lungs. He laid a forearm on the wall and leaned on it, then settled
his head below it. The tile cooled his brow. He closed his eyes and let things flow.
zhuhndí gripped Weir's neck just below his skull-line. Its pincer surfaced still another
realization: he really hadn't expected to win, not this time, not here in Ganj Dareh. That
achievement would have taken him too far in one step, from tactician of a combine selling ipê-wood
in Chogar — big on Continent Carpenter, small compared to the rest of Yeibichai — to Chief of
Anshin in a Prime Direvnya on the most-populous continent in the world. Oh sure, Günter had
shepherded him through a couple of other positions where Weir had more than earned his keep, but
there, he'd been cocooned against failure by other members of those combines. If he won here in
Ganj Dareh, he alone would be in charge, totally responsible for an endeavor that would shape the
daily lives of more than a million people. How could even Günter have expected him to make it that
far in one sweeping project? Especially so far from home. Especially against Byukan-Hamil. He
just wasn't good enough — yet.
Somewhere down inside himself, Weir had planned only a dry run, so to speak, successful in
demonstrating how to prepare, how to research and plan and practice an assault on an opportunity
for business in a place so foreign that off-world would be a minor increment in thinking. He fully
expected to head on back to Gatogrebok the day after the Collective Ganj Dareh picked Byukan-Hamil
again. Then, he'd spend the next little while in the post-mortem phase of the project, restful,
amusing, still academic, still under Günter's wing, responsiblity dissipated till the next
project. Then he would have been ready to win. Then, not now. Somewhere else, not here.
Instead, he'd strayed from the rules and ended up under contract, bound to deliver services, indeed
services that could determine life or unexpected death, even if to a fragment of Ganj Dareh's
population. It wasn't much money, but he could no longer walk away clean. A small commitment
compared to the thousands Gatogrebok lived up to all over the world, but zhuhndí nevertheless,
especially to those people who depended on him. A slight misstep that shifted the balance so that
he could no longer slip off to long seconds of introspection.
Guilty introspection, though. He'd made two vows, one as Günter's avatar, one as his own. Günter
wanted Weir to attack the degeneration of Pattern Languages on Popovich, to rescue the people here
from Byukan-Hamil's "grizzled ways." Weir had promised to do so. Then, on the train to
Ganj Dareh, Weir had made another promise, to his own past, to his own future possible — and in a
way, to Die Gastarbeiter. "Your suffering, your poverty, your unemployment, all are unnecessary.
Your leaders have failed you. Together, we shall restore your lives to the patterns of richness
and fulfillment you deserve." To have lost the bid here in Ganj Dareh would have been breaking
those promises.
Bladder empty, Weir tucked in his penis, away from uro-tek's suck, a vortex of warm air that took
care of stream, splash, and those last few drops. He stuck his hands into the upper niche just for
the instant it took the nano-scour to work. However, a panel-for-soliciting popped into the air
above the niche. It asked him, "Check your health? Let us inspect your urine and send you a
complete profile of bio-invasions and how your body is combatting them."
Weir absently poked the "Not this time" button, turned, and laid his hand on the door. Pushing
through this doorway, he would pass from pose to zhuhndí, from reality cerebral to reality
physical. He would be committed to Ganj Dareh even if it were just patrolling the boundaries
around one small neighborhood.
A neighborhood still fraught with secrets.
And what about Doyle Phoebe Heejanus, her combine circling his like a juracan? Maybe he could help
her with her problems, expand his scope to relieve her burdens, find a way to let her get a new
grip on life. Maybe.
Why not just call Rowl Frank-Byron, his constable chief? Tell him to select a squad and bring them
on over. Have them start walking Skeinswift's perimeter. And guarding our own clinics. A pang of
near-guilt, a twinge from overlooking a precaution obvious. If I'm wrong and Incidents flare
again, our clinics will need protection.
Protection Chief Heejanus is supposed to provide. How will she react if I bring my own? Weir
shrugged. What she doesn't know won't hurt her, or me, or the Collective Ganj Dareh.
Besides, if I ask him to include at least one instructor of Dan-Colora, I can get back to
practicing my moves ... in case I have to do some protecting myself.
Weir shook his head at that prospect unlikely, leaned on the door, and walked out. Okra sat
waiting with two snifters of Cognac. Hopefully, another interesting step on a whole new learning
curve.
