Not that you ever really know how things will turn out. On the Corridor, when things got bad, I got us by for awhile by scrap prospecting, like my daddy. Farming was a waste of time, anything we planted dried up if it ever made it out of the ground, so I used to take my little scooter and find what was left of some old road and go look for scrap. It never made much money, but at least it brought in something to buy food. Until the little scooter just gave up and I had to walk back the last 25 kilometers. If I had been farther away and had to walk I don't know how I'd have made it without water, but I was young enough then, I just walked home. Scared to death about how we'd make it without prospecting, but certain we'd make it somehow. When you're young it's always been all right before, you trust it will be all right this time.
But things are different here in the Commune. As long as there's the supply, the Commune has to make sure everybody has enough to eat, so we won't starve. And it looks as if Martine's expansion is going to pay off in the long run, as long as nothing major goes wrong. We compliment each other, Martine and I. She's good with animals and I'm good with keeping things running smoothly.
We're good business partners, Martine and I. That's the one part of our lives we handle well.
Wednesday afternoon. I sit down and watch the tape of my class. I have a tutorial at 5:00 and I wanted to watch the tape last night, but I ended up working longer than I expected on re-programing the tow-motor programs for the Commune.
I'm monitoring a class at Nanjing University, a systems class. I guess Nanjing is a very good school. I'd never have gotten near a university at home, and certainly never had a chance to do anything connected with a Chinese university, but some universities have this special, patriotic program to help the frontier effort so I get to audit the class. They get money from the Party, and they get to pat themselves on the back and think of themselves as forwarding the party ideals.
This is the second rec I've watched and all that happened in the first class is that the prof has belabored some obvious points about programming. Things are broken down into major points for easy memorization, the way the Chinese do everything. Four Modernizations. Three Revolutionary Ideals. Eight Legs Proof. The text book is a little theoretical. The first class didn't have much to do with the book. I don't see how taking this course is going to help either me or the commune, but the Ridge is footing the communications bill. Maybe I will learn enough to modify the Ridge controller system.
The translation is good. The prof is really speaking Chinese, of course. All I can say in Chinese are a few phrases I remember from senior middle school. Ni hao. Ni hao ma? Wo hen hao, xiexie. 'Hello, how are you? I'm fine, thank you.' And I'm sure my tones stink.
The second class takes off at a gallop. I sit with the book on my lap, stopping the rec, reading the textbook until I have an idea what he's talking about, then letting him talk again. He whips through the first chapter in an hour, and starts on the second chapter and it actually gets kind of interesting, although I still can't see what good it's going to do me. Then he assigns problems which I scribble down.
I took an advanced chemistry course in senior middle school. It was a correspondence thing, about five of us took it. My teacher had decided to 'make a difference.' We were going to pass entrance exams and go to university at Salt Lake. Anyway, the course had us do experiments where we'd have questions like:
A sample of iron oxide was heated and treated with a stream of hydrogen gas, converting it completely to metallic iron. The original sample weighed 3.50 g. and the resultant iron metal weighed 2.45 g. What is the empirical formula of the original compound?
It's like those jokes that start "A man a woman and a duck cross Main St." and go on for five minutes and at the end say, "and what was the name of the duck?"
Needless to say, that is the feeling that I have looking at the questions in front of me. A class 3 bundled reinforcement circuit with a 107 base can learn to recognize handwriting. It is run on three samples of different handwriting displayed below. Using the word 'cat,' diagram two probable sensitivity patterns.
Right. The whole beginning of the questions sets me up to think that I'm going to test for degree of error. I'm hell on degree of error. When I was learning to be a pilot and systems tech in the Army, we were always testing for degree of error, that tells you if the system is going to work or not. When I re-program, I run a simulation and test for degree of error. Who cares which bundles are becoming sensitized?
I go back and read part of the chapter again. Maybe it's the fact that the text is translated from Chinese, but somehow I have trouble following the leap from the explanation to the examples of how to figure this stuff out.
Well, that's what I have a tutor for. I've got about an hour and a half until the appointment. Theresa calls and asks if she can stay at the creche and play with Linda and I tell her dinner is at six. Martine comes in from the goats.
"The CO2 level's up in the new yard," she says.
Check the hardware. My area of expertise. "My tutorial's at 5:00, I'll look at it after dinner. Theresa's at the creche, with Linda. She'll be home at six."
So I kill time until almost 5:00, then sit down and wait.
The screen beeps, but remains blank. There's a seven and a half minute delay, approximately. That's the amount of time it takes the carrier to flash the signal from one planet to the other. Somewhere in China my tutor has sat down in front of a similar blank screen. So I introduce myself. "I'm Alexi Dormov," I say to the blank screen, feeling a little foolish. I tell her or him what I've done and explain my problem. Then I wait and kill time by paging through my book.
Seven minutes is a long time when you don't have much distraction. Then the image coalesces and I see a Chinese man making himself comfortable. He looks at a book in his lap and then at the screen. Actually, this is seven and half minutes in his past. Right now he is receiving my signal, watching me recite.
"My name is Zhang," he says, "I'm in my second year here at Nanjing, studying systems engineering. I'm actually between my third and fourth year of study because I have a two year certificate. I'm your tutor. My C-Mail Number is NJDX167, my personal suffix is 7994. Why don't you start by telling me what you've done and asking me any questions you might have. I'm going to let the screen record what you ask me so my answers will have, you know, maybe a better context. To fill time, I'll answer some of the questions most people have." He talks for about three minutes, I have elapsed time displayed on the screen, and then he looks at his book and notes.
He's speaking English-translation programs don't bother to lip synch. His English is very good and I wonder why someone studying systems at Nanjing University would have first studied English. Why is he my tutor? Do all students have to tutor someone? I feel as if I am staring. Will it look as if I am staring at him when he sees it seven-and-a-half minutes from now?