Q: Are you saying you have interests in common with the Abolitionists?
A: Absolutely. We always have had.
CHAPTER 5
i
Florian ran along the sidewalk that crossed the face of Barracks 3, remembered politeness when he met a handful of adults coming the other way, stopped, stood aside, panting, and gave a little bow that the adults returned with the slightest nods of their heads. Because they were older. Because Florian was six and because it was natural for a boy to want to run but it was also natural for adults to have serious business on their minds.
So, this time, did Florian have business. He was fresh from tapestudy. He had an Assignment, a real, every-morning Assignment. It was the most important thing that had ever happened to him, he loved everything about it, and he had been so excited he had begged the Super twice to let him go there and not to the Rec Hall where he was supposed to go after tape.
"What," the Super had said, with a smile and a little twinkle in her eye that he was sure meant she was going to let him, "no Rec? Work and Rec are both important, Florian."
"I've had Rec before," he had said. "Please."
She had given him the chit then, andthe Rec chit, for later, she had said, as long as he showed it to the Work Super first. And held out her arms. Hug the Super, the very niceSuper, and don'trun in the hall, walk, walk, and walk, as far as the door, walk down the sidewalk until he hit the downhill road, and then run,fast as he could.
Which was fast, because he was not only Alpha-smart, he was good at running.
Down the shortcut between Barracks 4 and 5, zip across the road, and shortcut again to the path that led to the AG building. He slowed down finally because his side was hurting, and he hoped in the way of things that moved everybody around all the time, Olders with younger boys, they were going to check him into a bunk a little closer to AG next month: it was farfrom Barracks 104.
Olders with jobs had priority on the bunks nearest. That was what he had heard from an Older, who was Kappa, who said he was always in the same barracks-group.
He caught his breath as he walked up to AG-100. He had been near here before. He had seen the pens. He liked the smell. It was—it was the way AG smelled, that was all, and there was nothing like it.
It was a kind of an Ad place in front. All white, with a seal-door, of course. You were supposed to go to Ad. He knew that the way tape showed you things. He pulled down the door-latch and it let him into a busy office, where there was a counter he was supposed to go to.
He could lean on counters lately. Just barely. He was not as tall as other sixes. Taller than some, though. He waited till a Worker turned around and came to see what he wanted.
"I'm Florian AF-9979," he said, and held up the red chit. "I'm Assigned here."
She gave him a polite nod and took the chit. He waited, licking dry lips, not fidgeting while she put it in the machine.
"You certainly are," she said. "Do you know how to follow the colors?'
"Yes," he said with no doubt at all.
And didn't ask questions because she was a Worker doing her Job and she would probably say. If you didn't get everything you needed when she was finished then you asked. That way you didn't make people make mistakes. Which was a Fault on your side. He knew.
She sat down at a keyboard, she typed, and the machine put out a card she took and added a clip to. He watched, excited because he knew it was a keycard, and it was probably his because she was working on his Business.
She brought it to him and leaned over the counter to show him things about it; he stood on tiptoe and twisted around so they could both see.
"There's your name, there are your colors. This is a keycard. You clip it to your pocket. Whenever you change clothes you clip it to your pocket. That's very serious. If you lose it come to this office immediately."
"Yes," he said. It all clicked with things tape said.
"Have you any questions?"
"No. Thank you."
"Thank you, Florian."
Little bow. Walk,then, back out the door and onto the walk and look up at the corner of the building where the color-codes started, but he could read all the words on the card anyway: and on the building.
Walk.No running now. This was Business and he was important. Blue was his color and white inside that and green inside the white, so he went the blue direction until he was inside blue and then inside blue's white zone. The squares told him. More and more exciting. It was the pens. He saw green finally on a sign at the intersection of the gravel walks and followed that way until he saw the green building, which also said AG 899. That was right.
It was a barn of sorts on one side. He asked an azi for the Super, the azi pointed to a big bald man talking to someone over in the big doorway, and he went there and stood until the Super was clear.
"Florian," the Super said when he had seen the card. "Well." Looking him up and down. And called an azi named Andy to take him and show him his work.
But he knew that, from tape. He was supposed to feed the chickens, make sure all the water was clean, and check the temperature on the brooders and the pig nursery. He knew how important that was. "You're awfully young," Andy said of him, "but you sound like you understand."
"Yes," he said. He was sure he did. So Andy let him show him how much he was to feed, and how he was to mark the chart every time he did, and every time he checked the water; and how you had to be careful not to frighten the chicks because they would hurt each other. He loved how they all bunched up like a fluffy tide, and all went this way or that way; and the piglets squealed and would knock you down if you let them get to swarming round you, which was why you carried a little stick.
He did everything the best he could, and Andy was happy with him, which made him the happiest he had ever been in his life.
He carried buckets and he emptied water pans and Andy said he could try to hold a piglet as long as he was there to watch. It wiggled and squealed and tramped him with its sharp little feet and it got away while he was laughing and trying to protect himself; Andy laughed and said there was a way to do it, but he would show him later.
It was a nice feeling, though. It had been warm and alive in his arms, except he knew pigs were for eating, and for making other pigs, and you had to keep that in mind and not think of them like people.
He dusted himself off and he went out to catch his breath a minute, leaning on the fence rail by the side of the barn.
He saw an animal in that pen that he had never seen, so beautiful that he just stood there with his mouth open and never wanted to blink, it was like that. Red like the cattle, but shiny-pelted, and strong, with long legs and a way of moving that was different than any animal he had ever seen. This one—didn't walk; it—went. It moved like it was playing a game all by itself.
"What's that?" he asked, hearing Andy come up by him. "What kind is that?"
"AGCULT-894X," Andy said. "That's a horse. He's the first ever lived, the first ever in the world."
ii
Ari likedthe playschool. They got to go out in the open air and play in the sandbox every afternoon. She liked to sit barefoot and make roads with the graders and Tommy or Amy or Sam or Rene would run the trucks and dump them. Sometimes they pretended there were storms and all the toy workers would run and get in the trucks. Sometimes there was a platythere and it tore up the roads and they had to rebuild them. That was what Sam said. Sam's mother was in engineering and Sam told them about platytheres. She asked maman was that so and maman said yes. Maman had seen them big as the living room couch. There were really big ones way out west. Big as a truck. The one they had was only a middle-sized one, and it was ugly. Ari liked being it. You got to tear up the roads and the walls, just push it right through under the sand and there it all went.