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And I know I am an odd case, but there is no net access in the Okavango Swamps. Please teach me what you would teach a child."
    Again Renie wondered what !Xabbu wasn't telling her. It had become clear in the past few weeks that he had some kind of weird connections-no one else would be jumped into the Polytechnic's advanced networker program without any background. It was like sending someone to a Johannesburg University literature course to learn their ABC's. But he was smart-very smart: with his small stature and formal manner, it was tempting to think of him as a child or some kind of idiot savant.
    Then again, she thought, how long would I survive naked and unarmed in the Kalahari? Not bloody long. There was still more to living in the world than net skills.
    "Okay. You know the basics about computers and information processing. Now, when you say 'Is this a real place?' you're asking a very difficult question. An apple is a real thing, yes? But a picture of an apple is not an apple. It looks like an apple, it makes you think about apples, you can even choose one pictured apple over another in terms of which might taste better-but you can't taste either of them. You can't eat a picture-or at least, it isn't like eating a real apple. It's only a symbol, no matter how realistic-looking, for a real thing. Got that?"
    !Xabbu laughed. "I understand you so far."
    "Well, the difference between an imagined something-a concept-and a real thing used to be fairly straightforward Even the most realistic picture of a house was only an image. You could imagine what it would be like to go inside it, but you couldn't actually go inside it. That's because it didn't fully replicate the experience of going into a real house, with all that entails. But what if you could make something that felt like a real thing, tasted like it, smelled like it, but wasn't that thing-wasn't a 'thing' at all, but only a symbol of a thing, like a picture?"
    "There are places in the Kalahari Desert," !Xabbu said slowly, "where you see water, a pool of sweet water. But when you go to it, it is gone."
    "A mirage." Renie waved her hand and a pool of water appeared at the far side of the simulation.
    "A mirage," !Xabbu agreed. He seemed to be ignoring her illustration. "But if you could touch it, and it was wet-if you could drink it, and quench your thirst-then would it not be water? It is hard to imagine something that is real and not real."
    Renie led him across the bare white floor of the simulation to the pool she had conjured. "Look at this. See the reflections? Now watch me." She knelt and scooped water with her simuloid hands. It ran out between her fingers, drizzling into the pool. Circular ripples crossed and recrossed each other. "This is a very basic setup-that is, your interface equipment, the goggles and sensors you just put on, are not very advanced. But even with what we have, this looks like water, does it not? Moves like water?"
    !Xabbu bent and ran his gray fingers through the pool. "It flows a little strangely."
    Renie waved her hand. "Money and time make it more realistic. There are external simulation rigs so well made that not only would this move just like real water, but you would feel it, cold and wet on your skin. And then there are 'cans'-neurocannular implants-which you and I won't get to use unless we wind up working for the top government labs. They let you pour computer-simulated sensations directly into your nervous system. If you had one of those, you could drink this water, and it would feel and taste just like the real thing."
    "But it would not quench my thirst, would it? If I did not drink real water, I would die." He didn't sound worried, just interested.
    "You would indeed. It's a good thing to remember. A decade or two ago you used to hear about a netboy or netgirl dying every couple of weeks-too long under simulation, forgot they needed real food and real water. Not to mention ordinary things like pressure sores. Doesn't