Weir Annadetcall
Weir checked his watch, strapped to the underside of his wrist. Another one of his tools, so
important to him, yet he could take it off at night — on the nights he actually went to bed —
along with his llevar. This tool told him he'd better hurry to meet Kanpa inside the Central
Station. He couldn't be rude, even to a Byukan-Hamil staff-lackey.
That's a bit harsh, Weir admitted to himself as he hustled through the Station's gardens toward its
entrance. Kanpa appeared to be an exception to BH's corruption. His papers, published by the
Global University, displayed insights intriguing to Pattern Languages. And the proposal he had
engineered — and Phoebe had submitted to Ganj Dareh — did break the mold, both dry and empty,
that BH had been using. It might present a dilemma to Ganj Dareh in their selection, though I
think we've still got the edge.
Weir stepped onto the packed dirt of the main path already streaming with people intent on their
missions, whether going in or coming out. He looked back over the mix of edibles and ornamentals
that glowed in the sunlight just emerging from the horizon. He'd arrived early to sniff around the
grounds surrounding the Station, but hadn't allowed enough time to fully appreciate the variety,
the presentation, and the husbandry he'd have to sustain once in the Chief's job.
Not that I had any seconds to spare this morning. Between wrapping up his role in yesterday's
Incident at the Drome, then researching Kanpa and finally getting around to reading Phoebe's
proposal, and as his last chore in the dregs of the night, preparing a twist à la Gatogrebok for
the investigation he'd talked her into "commandeering" him for, he'd barely had time for breakfast
on the qi-che that brought him here from Ammaerln House.
Regret about his stroll meager in the garden impressive dragged on him like an afterimage. Too
much so, he realized, and credited a night completely devoid of sleep after many without enough.
He straightened his shoulders, focused on the Station itself, and marched toward it. The broad
entrance, with its doors, tall and transparent, seemed slightly ponderous, though "stately" would
be more generous. Still, it did render a feeling of welcome and confidence.
He took the steps two at a time, stretching his legs to stir some juices against the dawn's
temptation to roll over and go back to sleep. He reached out for a handle, pulled open the door,
and stepped inside.
A faux future washed over him, leaving him contemplative. He hadn't expected to walk into the
Station until he'd won the contract, until he'd earned access to and authority over this building.
Nothing had stopped him. He could've easily taken a tour of the place, just like any tourist. He
could've sized it up, tried it on for size. In fact, most of his team-leaders had done so, but
he'd waved away their reports. He'd reserved this moment to a march of victory, a moment of
official sanction.
However, the zhuhndí future had its own ideas, as usual. He came to the Station now as a
consultant, with sanction, not from the Collective, but his competitor herself, and not to take
over caring for the direvnya personally and on his own, but to help out that competitor, to help
her ensure that the obligation they shared was fulfilled.
For I have made vows, not aloud where anybody else could hold me to task, but to myself, where they
count more. I promised to protect the people who live here, new and old, Gast and einheimischer.
And I will! He snorted, a laugh abrupt because it sprang from irony. How I dislike marketing —
admit its need, but dislike doing it — yet this little "service" could give us the best marketing
ploy of all time: saving the lives of the Collective voting on my proposal.
The crowd of anshin and zhee-tely inside the entrance room surprised Weir, though traffic on the
path outside should have warned him. All very orderly, but also very busy, these inhabitants of
the direvnya he wanted to care for appeared haggard, like one long day had just turned into
another, an all-too familiar experience to Weir. Over and among heads and shoulders, he caught
glimpses of half-offices and counters conducting business along the perimeter. He didn't know
where exactly to go, so he let nudges random determine his path while he tried to gauge how well
anshin and zhee-tely were getting along.
"Where have you been?" Kanpa demanded from his blind side.
Startled completely, Weir jumped back, then re-engaged while sorting through a couple of flippant
replies. He settled for, "Phoebe hassling you for results, is she?"
"Even worse. The Chief hasn't called me once since last afternoon. Let's go!" He spun
away toward the staircase climbing up along the room's back wall.
Weir silently applauded Phoebe's pressure tactic as he followed along. She stood high among those
he'd promised to help. He felt he was already relieving some of her burdens by assisting in this
investigation, if only to divert Kanpa from interfering with her immediate work, as all good
staff-lackeys do.
It wasn't all just for her, though, or the Collective and its crowd of Guest Workers. He'd pushed
Phoebe to give him this work because he needed it, too. Exercise his flexibility, which could use
a workout, as he'd been finding out. Surely, answering to his opposite number, leader of the
competition, even if just temporarily, would probe and prove his flexibility.
He also needed some assurances from his toolkit, especially the biggest part of it, the
Mirnaya Direvnya. It had failed to illuminate The Tangent like it should have. So, if he couldn't
find Gastarbeiterbande in the Em-Deh as well, then his future, with or without this contract, would
scare him tremendously. He depended on his ability with tools to define the world around him.
Finally, he just was not about to slink back into marketing now that he'd sunk his teeth into
Ganj Dareh's problems, at least the one out at the drome, now that he'd taken a true taste of the
job he was applying for. Now that he'd returned to pro-active mode, he could not return to the
reactive. Now that he had his hands on a chance to actually fix something, he wasn't going
to shirk. And now that he'd discovered he hadn't forgotten how to do the work after all, he wasn't
going to risk that feeling of loss again.
Ahead of Weir, Kanpa wove through the crowd. He acknowledged many anshin as he danced a nearly
straight line toward the broad first step. Almost there, he dodged aside toward a bas-relief,
off-white and wrapped around the staircase's central pillar. Though others had brushed past this
artwork without effect, for Kanpa it flicked aside, revealing another stair corkscrewing downward.
With just a confirming glance back, Kanpa scampered inside and stayed two spirals ahead of Weir all
the way to the basement.
Weir hurried out of the stair into a family of entrances, all leading to kivas. The door into #3
closed slowly. He pushed it open again to find Kanpa already pacing around the data silo, its
walls the stark cyber-blue of an idle techniker entrance to the Em-Deh. Its shelf at waist-height
offered a cluster of spigots, mugs, and canisters. Smells wafted from this area: qahwah and
muffins freshly made. And next to it, the nipple of an agent-for-identity.
Bearing down on the agent, Weir confirmed its standard shape and function, then slapped at it to
log onto the Mirnaya Direvnya. Immediately, he sent his gaze around the room to see his surprise
come on-line and watch Kanpa's reaction. He almost crossed his fingers. He remembered those last
minutes before he'd bolted from his office on his way over here. He hoped he'd plugged just the
right agent-for-queries into his one-time start-up queue in just the right way. He'd never worked
as a techniker and it was his first experiment with this little trick.
The walls faded into a background of soft opaline shaded to imply great depth. Then, the agent
showed its readiness to serve by paving those depths with bumps of varying sizes, all pale
mackeral-orange etched with ebony and slightly raised for texture. Just like Weir had planned.
"What's all this?" Kanpa asked. He'd slowed his pacing and craned to survey the virtual reality
that now engulfed him.
"Data potential," Weir answered, keeping his smugness to a trace.
Kanpa peered around at him, his dark eyes gleaming with soft pink highlights. After a long moment,
he said carefully, "Around here, we put our adjectives in front of their nouns."
Unsure of Kanpa's implications, Weir decided to take the comment as friendly. "Thanks. I'll
try. How's this? The spots represent points of potential data, nexi
between this agent-for-queries and us, its users."
Kanpa had found a wall zhuhndí with his hand and moved in close to the projection. "What kind of
design is this on each spot?"
Weir grinned. "Cuterebridae if you're talking humans. A parasite from Gë. Injected by
mosquitoes, the eggs hatch larvae that burrow through into muscle tissue. We don't have anything
like it on Yeibichai, thank the Singer."
"We've been here only 75 years," objected Kanpa, his tone just slightly pedantic. "There's a lot
we still don't know."
Still, Weir could almost see puzzlement quivering in Kanpa's puff-ball hair. With a chuckle in his
voice, he asked, "Wouldn't you like to know the common-name for this insect?"
"Common name?"
"They call it 'botfly.'"
Kanpa broke away from the wall and approached Weir. His smile didn't quite match the grin Weir was
fighting back, but it did light up the other man's face. "An agent-for-queries named 'botfly'
after an insect that burrows under the surface and lives there, feeding off stuff that passes by?"
He allowed a moment of appreciation for such an apt pun. "Although I haven't heard anybody call an
agent a 'bot' for a long time."
"Neither have I," admitted Weir, "but I couldn't resist the name when I stumbled across it."
Kanpa nodded a touch absently, as though he'd moved on. He said, "Does it live up to its name?"
Ah, work, the reason we came together today. Time to meet all those expectations I've laid down
for this task. "Let's just find out ... after I draw some qahwah."
"Good idea," Kanpa said, then jumped to lead the way.
In a few moments, his hands holding mug and muffin, Weir crooned at the agent, "Let's dance!" That
phrase set the tone and volume for subsequent commands. A ripple of readiness spread through the
polka-dot universe around them.
Weir asked Kanpa, "Sources public—" Weir corrected himself. "Public sources only?"
Kanpa seemed to stiffen. "Of course." So, he wasn't yet ready to open up the sub-network
restricted to anshin or Phoebe's own coag.
"Confine queries to Continent Popovich," Weir ordered and peeked at Kanpa. The Byukan-Hamil
staffer hadn't moved. "Correlate Die Gastarbeiter," he added in the same croon and settled back.
The dome virtual shed its dots of orange in an abrupt fluff of its background. Then, in a blink,
it scattered scarlet circles all over.
"Direvnya," Weir explained. "Different geometric shapes symbolize different kinds of, uh, actual
data. They're scarlet because I happen to like scarlet. Lines of correlation will appear in
saffron until we commit to them, then they'll change to ebony. When we're all done with a set of
correlations, the ones we haven't accepted will go away and we can start on another set."
As he finished talking, the dome erupted with saffron lines, connecting circles with arcs of
pale-yellow as if a weaver invisible slipped threads into a tapestry of pinkish-white. Abruptly,
Weir realized that all these threads led to one circle about a quarter turn along. A step behind
Kanpa, he confirmed that the circle stood for Ganj Dareh.
"What coordinates define the grid?" Kanpa asked.
"Geographic." Weir squeezed his mouth in self-reproof. "Sorry," he said. "I assumed you knew."
He added as an order, "Underlay geography outline."
Behind everything, dim, but sharply and distinctly rendered, the outline of Continent Popovich
appeared, reaching from the floor to the apex. Schematic mountains and rivers sprang up in brown
and blue, respectively, lending further definition to the sketch.
The agent finished its correlation. The display settled down. Saffron smeared everything.
"Well," said Kanpa. "I already knew that."
Chagrinned, Weir mumbled, "Accepted," then louder, "How many Gastarbeiter?"
"111,000 as of this morning."
"Not much help then," Weir sighed.
"No, it's not."
"That's a lot of movement in 25 days. That must—"
"Why 25 days?"
"I seem to have started this, uh, 'shift in patterns' with my Notice of Intent to Bid."
"What makes you think that?"
"Something Harlan said yesterday about Norma throwing out this Rendezvous just to trip me up."
"Ah, so Harlan thinks that, too." Kanpa shrugged with irritation. "Just because you came from
another continent, everybody thinks you offer penetrating insights into the human condition. Like
your shit don't stink."
Piqued, Weir used his anger to fuel his thinking. We're trying to isolate Bande from Gastarbeiter
honest and peaceful. What public data would help that? "Honest and peaceful," eh? Got it. Smug
once more, he ordered, "Remove everyone who has not been arrested."
In quick flurries, lines peeled away. The underlying geography started to show through. Kanpa
said, "Just what kind of resources does this botfly have access to?" Curiosity tweaked his voice
— and maybe some awe.
Weir winced as he envisioned his budgets virtually wilting each time he asked a question. "You
don't want to know."
Kanpa looked around with dissatisfaction.
"No tactician has ever used the botfly before. No one's ever had the funding to spare. It's
always run on research-and-development's Geld before, and you know what kind of deep pockets they
have."
A scowl wrinkled Kanpa's brow as he shook off the idea.
Weir regretted his glibness. Byukan-Hamil had probably long abandoned pure R&D. He tried to
refocus on the findings before them.
Kanpa interrupted, "Who else could make these correlations?"
Working to keep pride out of his voice, Weir said, "Probably nobody on Yeibichai. We've only just
put this together ourselves. We didn't invent any new type of data, just the correlation engine.
I'll probably get in trouble for showing it to you."
"Then they probably thought they were safe."
"Who?"
"I don't know! That's what we're here to find out, right?"
"Agreed." Weir waited for the next question, wondering where Kanpa would go from here.
"You're spending a lot on this investigation?" Kanpa said. "Why?"
"We have to settle this doubt."
"Why not wait until after you win, if you do? Why spend the Geld till you need to?"
Weir remembered his committments, wondered how to admit them to this ... adversary. He tried to
summarize, "I've been living the role of anshin tactician for ??time?? now. I've gotten used to
thinking of Ganj Dareh as my direvnya, my people. They need my help regardless, so I'm giving
it."
Kanpa gazed back for a moment, then turned abruptly to their problem mutual, but his shoulders
seemed to bunch around his stiff neck somewhat less.
Weir looked back at the data-film. The agent must have aborted for some reason, but it wouldn't do
that without complaining. It must have stopped too soon because it left entirely too much data up
there, great swaths of pale-yellow, way too much for them to see trends. "Trend analysis," Weir
crooned hopefully, but the agent balked there, too, with an enthusiastic raspberry, the sound Weir
had chosen to denote errors.
Qahwah gurgled from a spigot. Without looking around from the cup he was refilling, Kanpa quipped,
"I'm ready to be impressed now."
"Agreed." Weir stared at the surfeit of data. Sadly, the botfly, his latest tool, hadn't worked
the wonders he'd wanted. Once more, he had to come up with the creativity and energy to make sense
of a world that lost its moorings. And deal with a staff-lackey from Byukan-Hamil at the same
time. He drained his mug and marched for a refill. He was going to need all the help he could
get.
