"Jerry let them fight like that?" Alex said.
"Jerry was out-of-camp at the time. Besides, he wasn't actually fucking Janey back then; she was just hanging around the Troupe, trying to buy popularity. She was being a pain in the ass. Kind of like you're being right now."
"I noticed Jerry took Jane a lot more seriously after that fight, though," Buzzard mused. "Got her started on the weight training and stuff... Kinda shaped Janey up, I guess. She acts better now. I don't think Martha would want to tangle with her nowadays. But Martha's sure not one of Janey's big fans."
Alex grunted.
Buzzard pointed into the back of the truck. "See those deck chairs? Set 'em up under the sunshade."
Alex dragged the two collapsible deck chairs out of the truck. After prolonged study of their slack fabric supports and swinging wooden hinges, he managed to assemble them properly.
Buzzard launched his third ornithopter, then retreated into the cab of the truck. He emerged with a tangle of goggles, headphones, his laptop, and a pair of ribbed data gloves.
Buzzard then collapsed into his reclining chair, slipped on the gloves, the goggles, and the phones. He propped his elbows on the edge of the chair, extended his gloved fingers, wiggled the ends of them, and vanished from human ken into hidden mysteries of aerial telepresence.
Martha returned and collapsed sweating into the second deck chair. "What a mega-hassle, man, banks are the most paranoid goddamn networks in the universe. I hate banks, man." She shot Alex a narrow glare of squinting anger. "I even hate outlaw banks."
"Did you get through?" Alex said, standing at her elbow.
"Yeah, I got through-I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't get through! But I didn't pull much real use out of that tower, so we're gonna have to depend on that relay kite or we'll be droppin' packets all over West Texas." She frowned. "Jerry's gonna give us shit when he sees how we ran down the batteries."
"You'd think they'd at least give you some of their solar power," Alex said. "It just goes to waste otherwise."
"Only a fuckin' bank would want to sell you sunshine," Martha said bitterly.
Alex nodded, trying to please. "I can hear those racks humming from here."
Martha sat up in her chair. "You hear humming?"
"Sure," Alex said.
"Real low? Electrical? Kind of a throbbing sound?"
"Well, yeah."
Martha reached out and poked the virch-blind Buzzard between the ribs. Buzzard jumped as if gun-shot and angrily tore off his goggles and phones.
"Hey, Buzz!" Martha said. "Medicine Boy hears The Hum!"
"Wow," Buzzard said. He got up from his chair. "Here, take over." He helped Martha out of the chair and into his own. Martha began wiping the phones down with a little attached Velcro pack of antisePtic tissues.
Buzzard fetched up his shades and cap. "Let's get well away from the truck, dude. C'mon with me."
Alex followed Buzzard as they picked their way down the western slope of the hill, down the dirt track. Off in the distance, a broken line of squat grayish clouds was lurking on the horizon. The approaching violent storm front, if that was indeed what it was, looked surprisingly unimpressive.
"Still hear the hum?" Buzzard said.
"'SI0."
"Well, listen."
Alex strained his ears for half a silent minute. Insect chirps, a feeble rustle of wind, a few distant bird cries. "Maybe. A little."
"Well, I hear it," Buzzard said, with satisfaction. "Most people can't. Martha can't. But that's the Taos Hum."
"What's that?"
"Real low, kind of a wobbling sound... about thirty to eighty hertz. Twenty hertz is about as low as human hearing can go." He spread his arms. "Sourceless, like it's all around you, all around the horizon. Like an old-fashioned motor, or a fuel-burning generator. You can only hear it when it's really quiet."
"I thought it was the solar rack."
"Solar racks don't hum," Buzzard told him. "They hiss a little, sometimes...
"Well, what is it?"
"They call it the Taos Hum, 'cause the first reports came out of New Mexico about fifty years ago," Buzzard said. "That was when the first real greenhouse effects starting kicking in... . Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque...hen parts of Florida. Y'know, Jerry was born in Los Alamos. That's where Jerry grew up. He can hear The Hum."
"I still don't understand what it is, Boswell."
"Nobody knows," Buzzard said simply. "Jerry's got some theories. But The Hum doesn't show up on instruments. You can't pick up The Hum with any microphone."
Alex scratched his stubbled chin. "How d'you know it's really real, then?"
Buzzard shrugged. "What do you mean, 'real'? The Hum drives people nuts, sometimes. Is that real enough for ya? Maybe it's not a real sound. Maybe it's some disturbance inside the ear, some kind of resonant power harmonic off the bottom of the ionosphere, or something.
Some people can hear the northern lights, they say; they hear 'em sort of hiss and sparkle when the curtains move. There's no explanation for that, either. There's a lot we don't understand about weather." Buzzard clutched the lump of blackened metal on the leather thong around his neck. "A lot, man."
They stared silently at the western horizon for a lQng moment. "I'm sending the 'thopters out to scan those towers," Buzzard said. "They're gonna break the cap by noontime."
"You don't happen to have a spare pair of those shades, do you?" Alex said. "This glare is killing me."
"Naw," Buzzard said, turning back toward the truck. "But I got some spare virching goggles. I can put you under 'em and patch you in to the 'thopters. Let's go."
They returned to the truck, where Martha was remotely wrapped in flight. Buzzard rummaged in a tool kit, then produced a pair of calipers. He measured the distance between the pupils of Alex's eyeballs, then loaded the parameters into a laptop. He pulled spare goggles and phones from their dustproof plastic wrap and sterilized them with a swab. "Can't be too careful with virching equipment," he remarked. "People get pinkeye, swimmer~s ear... in the city arcades, you can get head lice!"
"I got no chair," Alex pointed Out.
"Sit on some bubblepak."
Alex fetched his bubblepak mat and sat on it, sweating. There was a faint hot wind from the southeast, and he couldn't call it damp, exactly, but something about it was suffocating him.
A lanky mosquito had landed unnoticed on Martha's virch-blinded arm and was filling its belly with blood. Alex thought of reaching over to swat it, then changed his mind. Martha probably wouldn't take a swat on the arm all that well.
"Here ya go," Buzzard said, handing him the goggles. "Telepresence is kind of special, okay? You can get some real somatic disturbance, 'cause there's no body sensation to go with the movement. Especially since you won't be controlling the flight. You'll just be riding shotgun with me and Martha, kinda looking over our wings, right?"
"Right, I get it."
"If you start getting virch-sick, just close your eyes tight till you feel better. And for Christ's sake, don't puke on the equipment."
"Right, I get it, no problem!" Alex said. He hadn't actually thrown up during his ultralight experience. On the contrary: he'd coughed up about a pint of blue goo from the pit of his lungs, then passed out from oxygen hyperventilation. He thought it was wiser not to mention this. If they thought it was merely vomit, so much the better.
Alex slipped the goggles on and stared at two tiny television screens, a thumb's width from the surface of his eyes. They were input-free and cybernetic blue, and the display had seen some hard use; the left one had a light pepper sprinkling of dead black pixels. He felt sweat beading on his goggle-smothered eyelids.