Kwan fanned the air. 'Your modern wires say that smoking is dangerous. I wish you would follow all this news you hear.'

'Sssh!' he insisted.

The bright female voice still enthused: 'Previously all such advances left the Valley far behind because of wiring and machines. This advance will be in the air we breathe. This new thing will be like TV in your head. All you need is the wires in the human mind.'

Kwan gathered up her things. 'Some nonsense or another,' she murmured.

'Next Sunday, there will be a Test. The Test will happen in Tokyo and Singapore but also here in the Valley at the same time. What Tokyo sees and hears, we will see and hear. Tell everyone you know: Next Sunday, there will be a Test. There is no need for fear, alarm, or panic.'

Mae listened then. There would certainly be a need for fear and panic if the address system said there was none.

'What test, what kind of test? What? What?' the women demanded of the husband.

Mr Wing played the relaxed, superior male. He chuckled. 'Ho-ho, now you are interested, yes?'

Another man looked up and grinned. 'You should watch more TV,' he called. He was selling radishes and shook them at the women.

Kwan demanded, 'What are they talking about?'

'They will be able to put TV in our heads,' said the husband, smiling. He looked down, thinking, perhaps wistfully, of his own new venture. 'There has been talk of nothing else on the TV for the last year. But I didn't think it would happen.'

All the old market was buzzing like flies on carrion, as if it were still news to them. Two youths in strange puffy clothes spun on their heels and slapped each other's palms, in a gesture that Mae had seen only once or twice before. An old granny waved it all away and kept on accusing a dealer of short measures.