days?”
“No one. Which is why we use it to communicate with our ally on the International Space Station.”
That was a surprise. I had assumed that the ISS—a relic of the now-defunct United States of America—had been scrapped when its founding nation broke apart in the Maelstrom.
“Really? I had no idea anyone was still up there.”
“Several of your admedistrations joined together to purchase it for the purpose of cultivating astronauts, you see. They’re using it as part of a program to train particularly gifted students. One of our youths managed to beat out ten thousand other applicants—” the Tamasheq warrior slipped back his sleeve, an actor striking a pose, revealing a vintage wristwatch on his arm— “and he is passing over our heads at this very moment.”
“I’m surprised they even let him in with his background, coming from a warring state and all.”
“He grew up in Mali. He is a citizen of the Republic of Mali.
We have many allies who are citizens of many countries. It is one of our strengths as a nomadic people.”
“But what does he tell you from space? ‘I have seen the Earth, and she is blue, like our turbans’?”
The moment I said it, the young man squatting by the dish with the bulky-looking headphones held up his hand. His face had gone pale.
The warrior glared at him. “Calm yourself. What have you heard?”
“We are getting a transmission…a bogey, a surveillance WarBird he thinks, flying toward our position. Probably Nigerian. But the silhouette is strange for a surveillance bird. He says they might be armed.”
Étienne and his gang tensed. If their armistice monitoring group was caught on video trading with the Kel Tamasheq—even if they were only trading immunization patches for tobacco and alcohol—it would look very bad.
I sighed. “Now I see why you always went to such lengths to specify the place and time of our little meetings.”
They were setting the times to coincide precisely with the orbit of that museum of a space station carrying their young spy inside. While we were monitoring the Tuareg, they were watching us too.
“Yes, without the support of our friend above, we would not be able to make these trades. This is a battlefield, you know. He is our spy satellite.”
The Kel Tamasheq warrior thrust out his hand, and I placed the memorycel in it. People with WatchMe installed could use their own skin as a storage medium, transferring data merely by touching fingers for a few seconds, but the Tamasheq had demanded we bring the data inside this little rectangular crystal. Only then would they make the trade. They still only trusted things you could see with your eyes here. It was a kind of animism. Something physical had to be exchanged for there to be barter, and that was it. Even when the medium was essentially for show.
“This should work against the new infection that’s been spreading in the area. Just install it on your server and your WatchMe will block off the access routes that the disease’s prions are using.”
I should pause at this point to mention, somewhat belatedly, that the Kel Tamasheq people all had WatchMe installed too. Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression or conjured some romantic image of a primitive, pure people, unsullied by medical nanotech. The Tamasheq weren’t Mennonites or Amish. If something was good, they took it—in moderation. They were wise that way. If all it took was a brief injection, then sure, they’d install WatchMe in themselves.
So,
“No one. Which is why we use it to communicate with our ally on the International Space Station.”
That was a surprise. I had assumed that the ISS—a relic of the now-defunct United States of America—had been scrapped when its founding nation broke apart in the Maelstrom.
“Really? I had no idea anyone was still up there.”
“Several of your admedistrations joined together to purchase it for the purpose of cultivating astronauts, you see. They’re using it as part of a program to train particularly gifted students. One of our youths managed to beat out ten thousand other applicants—” the Tamasheq warrior slipped back his sleeve, an actor striking a pose, revealing a vintage wristwatch on his arm— “and he is passing over our heads at this very moment.”
“I’m surprised they even let him in with his background, coming from a warring state and all.”
“He grew up in Mali. He is a citizen of the Republic of Mali.
We have many allies who are citizens of many countries. It is one of our strengths as a nomadic people.”
“But what does he tell you from space? ‘I have seen the Earth, and she is blue, like our turbans’?”
The moment I said it, the young man squatting by the dish with the bulky-looking headphones held up his hand. His face had gone pale.
The warrior glared at him. “Calm yourself. What have you heard?”
“We are getting a transmission…a bogey, a surveillance WarBird he thinks, flying toward our position. Probably Nigerian. But the silhouette is strange for a surveillance bird. He says they might be armed.”
Étienne and his gang tensed. If their armistice monitoring group was caught on video trading with the Kel Tamasheq—even if they were only trading immunization patches for tobacco and alcohol—it would look very bad.
I sighed. “Now I see why you always went to such lengths to specify the place and time of our little meetings.”
They were setting the times to coincide precisely with the orbit of that museum of a space station carrying their young spy inside. While we were monitoring the Tuareg, they were watching us too.
“Yes, without the support of our friend above, we would not be able to make these trades. This is a battlefield, you know. He is our spy satellite.”
The Kel Tamasheq warrior thrust out his hand, and I placed the memorycel in it. People with WatchMe installed could use their own skin as a storage medium, transferring data merely by touching fingers for a few seconds, but the Tamasheq had demanded we bring the data inside this little rectangular crystal. Only then would they make the trade. They still only trusted things you could see with your eyes here. It was a kind of animism. Something physical had to be exchanged for there to be barter, and that was it. Even when the medium was essentially for show.
“This should work against the new infection that’s been spreading in the area. Just install it on your server and your WatchMe will block off the access routes that the disease’s prions are using.”
I should pause at this point to mention, somewhat belatedly, that the Kel Tamasheq people all had WatchMe installed too. Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression or conjured some romantic image of a primitive, pure people, unsullied by medical nanotech. The Tamasheq weren’t Mennonites or Amish. If something was good, they took it—in moderation. They were wise that way. If all it took was a brief injection, then sure, they’d install WatchMe in themselves.
So,
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