Playground, page 20
CRIK knew that all living things were made up of cells. It knew that everything with cells died. It knew that animals were living things. It knew that Homo sapiens was a kind of animal high up in the splitting branches of the Linnean family tree. It knew that humans made friends, that bad things happening to people’s friends filled them with grief, and that death was considered a very bad thing. So, by a series of inexorable inferences, CRIK could have told me that I was headed to bottomless grief. Which is more than I knew at the time, even though I won an undergraduate programming prize, made the dean’s list that year, and was considered quite the little phenom.
I worked on CRIK for the next three years, adding a flyspeck of results to a growing leviathan. That leviathan would go on growing long after a new and vastly more powerful way of teaching AI leapfrogged beyond CRIK and threatened it with extinction. In time, I would find myself in one of those stories about a faster-than-light spaceship that comes across an older, sub-light-speed vessel that has been cruising for millennia. How do you tell the crew that their generations of sacrifice were pointless? CRIK’s designers were pioneers, and everything that they gave their lives to would be passed by in a heartbeat.
I TOOK RAFI to my little cubicle in the new supercomputing building. We played with CRIK for a long time, as if that creature were another of the many addictive networked games running on the university’s groundbreaking time-share system. Rafi wanted to stump CRIK. He probed it to see if it really understood the concept of “water.” Did it know that water was continuous with snow and ice and vapor? Did it know that water ran downhill and could polish granite or break it into little pieces? Did it know what it meant to make a thing “wet”? Did it understand “pouring” and “drinking” and “flow”?
We sat there for two hours, poking our probes into a clunky keyboard and waiting for CRIK to respond on a green, all-text screen. It was the strangest, most exciting, most entertaining thing in the entire universe. And CRIK did reasonably well. Not human, but it could answer questions. That alone felt like a miracle.
It was Sunday, the day when the dorm cafeteria served no dinner. So after playing with CRIK, Rafi and I went to campus town and shared a deep-dish pizza. The pie cost eight dollars—a ruinous expense for both of us. He had grown up on the border of poverty and would never learn to spend money freely. My father had had his own airplane, but my mother now lived in a one-bedroom apartment, selling the last of her husband’s prog rock vinyl collection at garage sales to make bus fare. Splitting that eight-buck pizza felt as sinful as flying to New York for a weekend to see a show.
We ate in near-silence. CRIK had shaken Rafi. I kept waiting for him to volunteer something. Finally, I had to ask. “So, what do you think of my baby?”
“Fuckin’-a, man. As if I didn’t have enough anxiety. Now I gotta decide whether to go on living.”
He was still preoccupied later that night, in our broom closet, as we went to bed. He lay in his narrow bunk, staring up at the ceiling. When he spoke at last, it startled me.
“Has it occurred to you that computers might be the thing that makes it possible?”
We’d been living together in such close quarters for so many months that our brains had synchronized. I knew in an instant what he was talking about. His pet obsession. The Common Task.
“Make everybody live forever?”
“And raise everyone from the dead.”
I waited for him to say more, but Rafi was already starting his long descent into reticence that would, in time, cut him off from me forever. That night, he fell asleep without another word.
The next saturday afternoon, the mayor called another island-wide meeting. Most everyone above the age of eighteen was there. Not the Hermit, of course. Didier had ridden the mayoral motorbike down to the abandoned hamlet of Tahiva to tell the solitary man, but Tamatoa was not interested. Almost all the other adults showed up, including the postmistress, the clinic nurse, the priest and the minister, the pension owners, the American couple, the ancient Canadian diver, and even Wen Lai, who had to close the shop—no hardship, since everyone else was at the meeting. Mothers brought their children, and a couple of the more curious teens turned up to watch. Life on the island ceased as Makatea convened on the community center.
There weren’t enough folding chairs for everyone, so some sat on woven mats in the front of the circle, while a few others stood behind the ring of chairs. Didier opened the meeting with an announcement.
“The government has agreed to respect the outcome of Makatea’s vote.”
Surprise rippled around the ring of listeners. Lots of islanders began to speak at once.
“Can we trust them?”
“Why did they agree so easily?”
Manutahi Roa was on his feet, shaking his head. “It doesn’t sound like them, Chief. They must have something up their sleeves.”
Hone Amaru answered for the mayor. “They have plenty of fallbacks. If we don’t want to host the pilot, one of the other hundred-and-some islands in the country will be happy to profit from it.”
Five minutes in, and Didier felt himself losing control of the meeting. “All the involved parties see Makatea as their first and strongest choice.”
Father Tetuanui, who had baptized, confirmed, and married Didier, raised his hand. Feeling like an upstart child, Didier called on him. “Yes, Father, please. Go ahead.”
“Forgive me for being slow. Could you please tell us exactly what we’d be agreeing to?”
“Yes. I was just getting to that.” Head down, he examined the official proposal. “The Californians will renovate the mining company main offices, tear down and reconstruct seven of the old warehouses and storage facilities, and restore four miles of the overgrown railroad. Building materials and some semi-finished components will be shipped in through the rebuilt port. Two factories will be built—one to fabricate struts and pontoons and one for assembling the working modules. . . .
“In stage one, eight initial floating modules will be constructed—four for habitation and one each for maintenance, agriculture, light industry, and power. Power will be a mix of solar, wind, and wave. These modules will be launched beyond the lagoon, where they will be tested in different configurations. If the initial projects go well, the consortium will submit further proposals for stages two and three. . . .”
This catalog was met by an outbreak of local debates. Didier called the meeting back to order, with limited success.
“Let’s do this together, so we all benefit, eh?”
A dozen hands shot up. Didier called on Wen Lai. Everyone respected Wen Lai.
“But what is the nature of the proposal? Have they set a method to calculate our remuneration? The last time a project of this magnitude came to the island. . . .”
“They robbed us blind and trashed the place!” Neria Tepau, the postmistress and cofounder of Paruru i to Tatou Fenua, tapped the mood of much of the house. A wave of agreement propelled her forward. “Never forget how they manipulated us!”
Silence fell over the room for a full five seconds. Wen Lai broke it.
“We will need so much more information to consider this matter. Are they buying or leasing? Did these people promise anything about salaries? We all remember what our fathers and grandfathers earned, for risking their lives on the pinnacles and breathing phosphate dust all day long.”
Didier went back to the proposal and read starting salaries for a dozen different job descriptions. The whole gathering gasped. Madame Martin called across the congregation to Ina Aroita and Rafi Young. “Your people are insane with money!”
The promised salaries alone threatened to sway the electorate. The circle buzzed with the sound of people asking each other what was left to debate. The island’s poverty would vanish. Makatea’s debts would be paid in full. The ruins would turn back into a living town. They could expand their one-room clinic and hire doctors—no more ferrying sufferers across a hundred miles of ocean. They could staff and equip a high school. They could buy the best of what the outside world had on offer: new clothes, furniture, dishes, tools, tablets, phones, books. There would be money enough to grind down and fill in the treacherous pinnacles, to heal the scar of extraction that ran the length of the island.
The chief of sanitation stood up, a man named Tino Fortin. He’d come to the island forty years ago, after some youthful scandal on Mo’orea. Since then, he’d gone native in every way—thought, speech, and custom. People sometimes forgot that he wasn’t Tuamotuan.
“What kind of employment numbers are they projecting?”
“Phase one is expected to involve three hundred people.”
The laughter fell somewhere between rowdy and incredulous. Every person on the island would be employed, with hundreds of jobs left over. For every current inhabitant of Makatea, three more immigrants would move in. In seconds, the room split between those thrilled at the prospect and those who were terrified.
Muscles spasmed across Manutahi Roa’s face. Clearly Papeete was dead set on this project, and he did not trust Papeete. But with that kind of money pouring in, and future phases to come, all 118 islands of French Polynesia might finally be emboldened to cut the umbilical from Mother France. He raised his hand to make the point, then lowered it again. A fair part of the island opposed the whole idea of independence. Linking the two questions might be ill-advised.
Puoro and Patrice, the trawler co-owners, waved their four arms until Didier hushed the room and acknowledged them. Patrice stood and chopped each syllable into the air.
“Imagine what effect this will have on fishing.”
Hone Amaru stifled a laugh. Didier faced the old mayor’s son, waiting for elaboration. Amaru tipped his head toward his rising right shoulder. “Sorry. Carry on!”
Puoru took up the thread. “All those big industrial ships churning up our reef? It’ll destroy the catch.”
Hone could no longer contain himself. “We’ll be making more every week than your fishing produces in a year! We could buy all our fish from other islands and still come out miles ahead.”
Evelyne Beaulieu shifted upward in her chair in the back row. Her body flushed and her thoughts raced into battle, but this was not her fight. She glanced at Wai Temauri, sitting next to her. The captain squinted and ran one open palm against his mouth and chin. She could not read his vote. His daughter Kinipela—the youngest person in the gathering—twisted on the lip of her folding chair. Her right hand wanted to levitate, but her father held it gently in his left.
The Queen rose and shimmied to the center of the ring. She held out both arms as if about to dance. When she started to speak, she was almost singing.
“Listen. Friends. Te mau haamaitairaa i ni’a i te mau taata atoa. Blessings on everyone. What I have to say is very simple. You know that I worked for the CFPO, and I did good work for them. You know that I went to Hao and worked for the French there, when they . . . did what they did. I have seen this island rich, and I have seen this island poor. I know what it means to have a job and to be without one. I know what it means to want things.
“But I know what it means to have things, too. I ask you: Who among us, right now, is truly unhappy? Who, right now, thinks we are miserable? Progress tore the heart out of this island. It’s enough. Now we are mending. We are mending! Our forests are coming back. The numbers of our beloved rupe are going up. We will be a bird sanctuary again, before too long!”
The Widow Poretu, who loved her birds more than any other biped and tracked their comings and goings in twenty years of notebooks, called out, “Hear, hear!”
The Queen continued. “You know, they call us Makatea l’Oublié. I say: Fine! Let them forget us. Let everyone leave us be, so that we can live here in this healing place together and enjoy each other all our days.”
Scattered applause started up, even before she finished. She dipped her head a little and glided back to her seat.
The mayor nodded. “Māuruuru, auntie. Thank you. But maybe it’s not quite time yet for the actual arguments. . . .”
His words drowned in thirty different urgencies, all debated at once. People leaned in, faced down, and talked over one another. In the commotion, Madame Martin rose and moved to the right of Didier, who stood stymied at the head of the ring. In the patient voice of a schoolteacher, she called, “Silence, s’il vous plaît! Un peu de silence!”
At the sound of that voice, which rang with authority in the ears of many of the younger islanders, the gathering came back to order. In the same slow, well-modulated singing voice she used in her classroom, Madame Martin said, “If we could all please take one giant step back? I want to point out that we have gotten a little ahead of ourselves. There is an important first step we still need to take. Have we decided yet, exactly who gets to vote?”
The simple question silenced everyone. So obvious to ask, and so impossible to answer. Everyone looked to Didier, who studied his sheaf of papers. Hone Amaru raised his hand, and the mayor almost leapt at him for an answer.
“If the government has approved a referendum, surely they’re assuming it will be a poll of registered voters.”
A voice came from the audience. “But does their assumption matter? Shouldn’t we decide who gets to have a say?”
Hone Amaru spun around, searching for the source of the ambush. The challenge came from Wen Lai. The owner of the Chinese Store seemed an unlikely opponent. But the quiet shopkeeper was also a philosopher, one who had seen his father put his life on the line twice, as a huagong “coolie,” fighting for a say in his own destiny in two fatal strikes against the CFPO.
Who got to vote? Makatea had suffered from history so hard and for so long that it was tough to tell the outsiders from the indigenous. Most everyone was half from somewhere else. An easy half dozen of the island’s current adults were not citizens. But the island’s guest-friendship ran so deep that no one in the ring could look the more recent residents in the eye and tell them: This is none of your concern.
A burst of uncharacteristic political savvy flashed through Didier Turi. For a moment, he remembered how to fast-break out of a midfield scrum and blast the ball downfield. He held up both hands, preempting all discussion.
“This decision will change the lives of everyone on this island. I move that every adult resident who has lived here more than half a year be allowed to vote. All in favor?”
A cheer went up, as much for his decisiveness as for the decision itself.
“All opposed?”
The opposition chose not to die on this hill, this time.
“Papeete has given us a month. I propose that we take that full time before voting. That way, everyone will have a chance to discuss and consider the question fully. Of course, we’ll gather again many times before then. So, unless there are any further questions. . . .”
There were always further questions. This one came from Roti, Didier’s wife. The mayor dropped a beat, before acknowledging her raised hand. He could not remember the last time his wife had had anything to say in any group of more than three people.
“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Turi?” And the whole island aside from Roti Turi laughed.
Her hands shook and her face paled, but her voice held steady. “Once these people come, with their factories and their floating sea-cities, they won’t be leaving again. Life here will change in every way. Nothing will ever be the way we know it now.”
Didier lifted his hands. “It is not yet time to argue—”
His wife sailed past his objections. “Long after we adults are dead, our children will still be living with the consequences of this decision. I move that we let everyone who can write their own name vote.”
She sat down, flushed with embarrassment. Didier gaped at the woman he had been married to for nine years. And the sala erupted again.
Hone Amaru opposed the idea. “The brains of young children are not yet mature enough to reason well.”
Wen Lai said, “Decisions are rarely made by reason but almost always by temperament, and that doesn’t change much as people get older.”
Manutahi Roa objected. “The children will vote how their parents tell them, giving everyone with children more say in the matter.”
Every parent in the ring howled with laughter.
Tino Fortin stood again. “The island has so few children. If they split in the same way as the adults, it won’t change the vote. If they don’t, it means Roti Turi is right about letting the future have a say in the matter.”
Tiare Tuihani, the nurse who ran the clinic, leapt up. “How can any child understand the enormous complexities and consequences of sending Makatea down the road toward . . . toward this seasteading?”
The Queen chuckled. Still seated, she shouted, “The adults understand perfectly, eh?”
The ensuing debate got away from Didier Turi. He was still marveling at his wife’s public courage. She had all but blurted out to the entire island what she had struggled to tell him in the privacy of their own bed. The younger a human being was, the more readily she loved them. And life had said that she would never hold her own newborn in her arms. Of course she had gone off sex with him. Any attempt to persevere in it must have felt like being slapped around by God.
Democracy was slower and more erratic than windsurfing. Soon everything that could be said about the wisdom or folly of letting children vote on the future of the island had been said. Didier shook off his fog.
“All in favor of extending the vote to every person capable of writing their own name?”
A cheer went up, and a forest of raised hands.
“All opposed?”
Another cheer and show of hands, close in size to the first. The mayor was tired of politics and wanted this meeting to be over. “The motion passes,” he announced.
