Tony Daniel (23 page)

How am I to give it to him, Despacio thought, without breaking the man into pieces? There was something intense—no, something profoundly
disturbed
—in Schlencker. Did he even want to bring the music out of the young man? Would it truly be a service to the world? But he could not control that. The world and Schlencker would make of one another what they would make. The young man had fanatical discipline. If it were going to be a contest, Despacio pitied the world.

Schlencker appeared for his next lesson on time as usual. Despacio had settled on his “Ben Johnston” plaid and jeans outfit as his standard representation while he worked with Schlencker on composition. The young man was making rapid technical progress, as he always did. He’d even turned in a couple of pieces that reflected some emotion—irritation in one, and a trace of . . . not anger, in the other. Something vigorous and ill content. But for the most part Schlencker was missing the point over and over again. And Despacio could no longer blame it on a lack of skill or mental organization.

Schlencker sat down, winding himself into the chair as if he were a wood screw. Despacio sank into the chair across from him. He waved a finger, and a pair of keyboards appeared on the table, one for each of them. Then Despacio had a second thought, motioned, and the keyboards disappeared.

“Mr. Schlencker,” said Despacio, “tell me a joke.”

“What?” Schlencker had, much to Despacio’s pleasure, dispensed with the ‘sirs.’ ”

“Something funny.”

“A
joke
joke, you mean?”

“Yes, Claude—” This was Despacio’s version of ‘sir’—to use Schlencker’s first name. “—a joke. The best one you know.”

“I . . . I can’t think of one.”

“Surely you know at least one joke?”

“I’m sure I do, but I can’t think of one.”

“Nothing that strikes you as humorous? An observation?”

“No.”

Despacio motioned his own keyboard back. He played a short trill. He was happy when Schlencker immediately recognized it as Bach pastiche, and smiled. Despacio continued with his improvised copying of the master. Schlencker’s smile became a grin. Despacio motioned a keyboard for Schlencker.

“Join me?”

Schlencker thought for a moment, and Despacio gave him a cue. He entered in. They spent the rest of the lesson in wacky imitation.

But Schlencker was ready for him the next time.

“What did the composition program say to the programmer at its first recital?”

Despacio groaned. He’d heard this one. And heard it and heard it.

“Look, Ma, no hands,” Schlencker said perfunctorily.

“Very funny,” Despacio said. “Now tell me about your mother.”

“I haven’t got one,” the young man answered. “She left when I was little.”

“What do you remember?”

“Not much. Is this important?”

“Indulge me, Mr. Schlencker.”

“She was . . . soft. Too soft. I kind of remember her as being like dough.”

“Soft? And your father was hard?”

“Oh yes.”

“But now he’s dead.”

“If you can believe your eyes,” Schlencker replied. “Of course,
you
haven’t got any.”

“Now that was funny, Mr. Schlencker.”

The young man sat back, nonplussed.

“You’ve seen a psychologist?”

“Yeah. I took some tests when I came to the gymnasium.”

Despacio smiled slightly, tugged at his beard. “Did you ever tell the psychologist about how you like to hurt yourself?” he asked.

Schlencker abruptly stood up. “What? Have you been spying on me?”

“Sit down, Mr. Schlencker. Sit. Just a lucky guess.”

“How the hell could you guess something . . . like that?”

“We’ve been working together for over a year.”

“Working. That’s all. Hey, how did you know my dad was dead?”

“Now that
was
in the dossier they gave me.”

“Oh.”

Despacio leaned back in his chair and considered his pupil. “Do you realize,” he said, “that you could very well live to be five hundred years old with the new treatments? Some people—the lucky ones—are already five hundred or more. But now, just about everyone will be. I, on the other hand, am indefinite. But the point is, both of us are going to be around a very, very long time.”

“Yes.”

“How do you suppose, Mr. Schlencker, that we will keep from going mad?”

“Mad? Crazy mad?”

“Crazy mad.”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“I have a theory.”

“Yes.”

“Are you interested?”

Schlencker was quiet for a moment, then said, “I guess.”

“Music,” said Despacio.

“Do you mean us, personally?”

“I mean everybody.”

“People will have to listen to music?”

“To keep from drifting off. To remember how to feel. To remember how it feels to think clearly and with true feeling.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“When you are five hundred years old, your father will have been dead for four hundred and eighty-two years.”

“I can’t wait.”

Despacio leaned forward and motioned on the table’s keyboards.

“Do you hate your father, Mr. Schlencker?”

“Yes,” Schlencker replied. “Yes, I do.”

“Well then. Hatred. You have hatred. Maybe we can find something else. But we’ll start with the hatred. You’d better never forget
that
if you ever want to write music,” said Despacio. “Now show me what you brought in today.”

from

Quatermain’s Guide

The Advantages of the Strong Force

A Guide to and History of the Met

by Leo Y. Sherman

Although the theoretical possibility of space tethers was known in the twentieth century, the materials sciences were unable to produce a composite with the required tensile strength. Buckyballs had been invented, but superstrong and superelastic matter had to await the full working out of the principles of quantum electro- and chromodynamics, and the nanotech revolution which began in the 2300s and is continuing to this day.

By the early 2400s, nanotechnologists had united buckyball constructions with superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) to create a reproducible molecular chain that displayed quantum behavior on the macro level. Buckyball SQUIDs behave like the individual components in an atom—that is, electrons, protons, neutrons, and the protons’ and neutrons’ constituent quarks. They do this by creating a kind of “resonating chamber”—much like an organ pipe. As sound resonates in a musical pipe, particles take the form of standing waves in a SQUID.

The most important behavior that the nanotechnological engineers were able to produce, at least in regard to the Met, is the strong nuclear force.

The strong interaction is the force that holds the nucleus of an atom together even though the clump of positively charged protons wants to blow apart, since like electrical charges repel. The strong force is actually a by-product of the color force of quarks, which make up the protons. Normally, the strong force operates only in a strictly prescribed distance, which is, naturally, close to the diameter of an atomic nucleus (about 10
^{– 13}
centimeters). But at that range, the strong force is 100 times stronger than the force of electromagnetism. This means, in principle, that it is 100 times stronger than the chemical bonds that make up most ordinary construction material. In a chain of buckyball SQUIDs, the strong force is manifested as a “particle” that is 0.5 centimeters across—visible to the naked human eye. By the mid 2400s such chains were being regularly produced in the laboratory.

The strong force has one more peculiar property that is essential in Met construction. It does not obey the inverse square law of both electromagnetism and gravity. Within the range of the strong force, quarks that are farther away are actually pulled more strongly than quarks that are closer together. You can picture it as a rubber band connecting two particles. The more you stretch the rubber band, the harder it pulls the particles. When the particles are close together, the rubber band is slack. It is this property of the strong force, operating on a macro level, that gives the Met cables their ability to bend without breaking. Torque forces that would easily separate material made of mere chemical bonds cannot overcome the strong force manifested by the buckyball SQUIDs, and the Met holds together.

In fact, there is no known force generated by the turnings of the planets that is even close to pushing the Met’s structural tolerances. If you live or travel in the Met, you are as safe as you are on the surface of a planet (and they are, themselves, held together, on the level of the atomic nucleus, by the strong force of nature).

After two years of composition work with Despacio, Claude Schlencker’s concerto took the first prize in the Met-wide competition for new composers. Its subtitle was “Meditations in Red.” He wrote it in the key of Charm, with several quick transpositions to Strange and Bottom.

Despacio was the first person to whom Claude broke the news. His lessons had continued past Claude’s graduation from Asap Gymnasium and into his enrollment in Suisui University on Mercury.

“It’s going to be performed,” Claude told him. “Here. In the Solar Hall in Bach.”

“By a virtual orchestra?” said Despacio.

“No,” said Claude. “By bodies.”

Despacio looked sad for a moment. “I see,” he said. Then he brightened. “It’s quite good, you know, Mr. Schlencker. Better than anything in a long while.”

“I owe it all to you.”

“Do you?”

Claude blinked, then sat down in his usual chair. That is, what he imagined to be his chair, even though it was only so much coding. Just as Despacio was.

“No,” he said. “Not all.”

“Let us always be honest with one another, Mr. Schlencker.”

Claude was silent for a moment, and then he decided to ask the question he’d been wanting to ask for some time now.

“Do you have a first name, Despacio?”

“Yes,” said the composer. “Yes, I do.”

“I hate my name,” Claude said.

“It’s a fine name.”

“I hate it.”

“Very well, then. You hate it.”

“I want to use another one. To sign my work. For everything. I would like it to be . . . a name that means something to me. A name that means something else to me than ‘Claude Schlencker’ does.”

Despacio tugged his beard. Claude felt he must have been mistaken, but he could have sworn the old composer’s eyes were . . . misty. But that could not be. He wasn’t real, and he couldn’t cry.

“When they first . . . programmed me . . . long before they fed in the mentalities and ran me through evolution, they used to have a name for me. It is what I’ve always thought of as my first name, because it was, you see,
first
. I’ve never told anyone.”

“Will you tell me?”

“It was an acronym, from
English
words. Not really a proper name at all.”

“What was it?”

“Artificial Musical Expression System. With the accent on ‘Expression.’ “ Despacio sat down in the chair across from Claude. “It’s really rather horrible. That’s why I never use it.”

“Amés,” Claude said.

“Amés.”

“May I use it?”

“You may,” replied Despacio. “You may, indeed. I have no further use for it, I can assure you.”

“Amés,” said the former Claude Schlencker. “From now on, that will be me.”

from

Quatermain’s Guide

The Advantages of the Strong Force

A Guide to and History of the Met

by Leo Y. Sherman

The Met is a democracy. It is based on an interlocking amalgamation of directorates each with its own function or geographic provenance. Met citizens “vote with their channel selectors,” with each citizen guaranteed membership in at least three directorates, and each having the ability to change allegiances at any time. Directorate members usually then elect a board, who appoint the director general and various higher-ups. Most positions under the subdirectorate level are based on merit, as judged by these appointed officers. Sometimes membership in a directorate can swing widely, especially during merci events prominently featuring a particular directorate or associated group, whether in a positive or negative light. Within minutes, relative voter strength can double or triple, as Met citizens exercise their “right to change channels.”

This form of modified popular democracy has its roots in the last century and is a direct result of the famous “Conjubilation of 2993.” During that e-year, when Earth and Mars were in planetary opposition in their orbits, a major span was constructed connecting the two sides of the Diaphany bend not far from the center. Promoters trumpeted the Conjubilation as a major cultural event on the merci, but it soon grew far beyond their expectations and then beyond their control. Nearly six million people made the trip to the span, and millions more attended in the virtuality. Many important cultural and scientific movements had their origins in the event, but most importantly for us here, a series of demonstrations broke out against the old Federal Republic. These in turn had their beginnings in the music and art festival called the Merge.

At the Merge, political opinions transformed daily, but the consensus seemed to be that something had to change in the way the government of the time did things. Matters were not helped for the old Republic when the then president of the Republic, Quim Fukuyama, put in a personal appearance and, after a rather mediocre speech, told everyone to “please go home.” As a result of the “Please Go Home” speech, the Republic was sent packing in the next election, and activists from the Merge elected. They quickly put into place the directorate-based government (the directorates were at first called havens) that we have today in the Met.

The most important political figure to arise out of the Merge was a LAP going by the singular name of Amés. Amés had come into the merge as a featured musician (he was a composer). It was Amés who first saw the need for a directorate interlock and, after campaigning vigorously (some have claimed ruthlessly) for such an entity, he was appointed its director. Since that time, Director Amés has been reappointed to the post.