While their son was small they could do this. But he was growing, and the day would come they could not.
Jin thought about it, late, lying with Pia and cherishing the silence…how things had gone astray from what the tapes had promised, before the machines had broken. The greatest and wisest of the born‑men were buried over by the sea, along with azi who had met accidents; the ships were no longer coming. He wished forlornly to lie under the deepteach and have the soothing voice of the tapes tell him that he had done well.
He doubted now. He was no longer sure of things. His son, whom sometimes they loved, who came to them and hugged them and made them feel as if the world was right again, had contrary thoughts, and strayed, and somehow an azi was supposed to have the wisdom to control this born‑man child. Sometimes he was afraid–of his son; of the unborn one in Pia’s belly.
When the ship comes, the azi used to say.
But they stopped saying that. And nothing was right since.
IV
THE SECOND
GENERATION
Military Personneclass="underline"
Col. James A. Conn, governor general, d. 3 CR
Capt. Ada P. Beaumont, It. governor, d. year of founding
Maj. Peter T. Gallin, personnel
M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette, Corps of Engineers
Cpl. Antonia M. Cole
Spec. Martin H. Andresson
Spec. Emilie Kontrin
Spec. Danton X. Norris
M/Sgt. Danielle L. Emberton, tactical op.
Spec. Lewiston W. Rogers
Spec. Hamil N. Masu
Spec. Grigori R. Tamilin
M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, maintenance
Spec. Dorothy T. Kyle
Spec. Egan I. Innis
Spec. Lucas M. White
Spec. Eron 678‑4578 Miles
Spec. Upton R. Patrick
Spec. Gene T. Troyes
Spec. Tyler W. Hammett
Spec. Kelley N. Matsuo
Spec. Belle M. Rider
Spec. Vela K. James
Spec. Matthew R. Mayes
Spec. Adrian C. Potts
Spec. Vasily C. Orlov
Spec. Rinata W. Quarry
Spec. Kito A. M. Kabir
Spec. Sita Chandrus
M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, communications
Spec. Yung Kim
Spec. Lee P. de Witt
M/Sgt. Thomas W. Oliver, quartermaster
Cpl. Nina N. Ferry
Pfc. Hayes Brandon Lt. Romy T. Jones, special forces
Sgt. Jan Vandermeer
Spec. Kathryn S. Flanahan
Spec. Charles M. Ogden
M/Sgt. Zell T. Parham, security
Cpl. Quintan R. Witten
Capt. Jessica N. Sedgewick, confessor‑advocate
Capt. Bethan M. Dean, surgeon
Capt. Robert T. Hamil, surgeon
Lt. Regan T. Chiles, computer services
Civilian Personneclass="underline"
Secretarial personneclass="underline" 12
Medical/surgicaclass="underline" 1
Medical/paramedic: 7
Mechanical maintenance: 20
Distribution and warehousing: 20
Robert H. Davies d. CR 3
Security: 12 Computer service: 4
Computer maintenance: 2
Librarian: 1
Agricultural specialists: 10
Harold B. Hill
Geologists: 5
Meteorologist: 1
Biologists: 6
Marco X. Gutierrez
Eva K. Jenks
Jane E. Flanahan‑Gutierrez b. 2 CR
Education: 5
Cartographer: 1
Management supervisors: 4
Biocycle engineers: 4
Construction personneclass="underline" 50
Food preparation specialists: 6
Industrial specialists: 15
Mining engineers: 2
Energy systems supervisors: 8
ADDITIONAL NONCITIZEN PERSONNEL:
“A” class: 2890
Jin 458‑9998
Pia 86‑687
Jin Younger b. year of founding
Mark b. 3 CR
Zed b. 4 CR
Tam b. 5 CR
Pia Younger b. 6 CR
Green b. 9 CR
“B” class: 12389
“M” class: 4566
Ben b. 2 CR
Alf b. 3 CR
Nine b. 4 CR
“P” class: 20788
“V” class: 1278
i
Year 22, day 192 CR
It was a long walk, a lonely walk, among the strange hills the calibans raised–but her brothers were there, and Pia Younger kept going, out of breath by now, her adolescent limbs aching with the running. She always ran on this stretch of the trail, where the mounds and ridges were oldest and overgrown with brush. She never admitted it to her brothers, but it disturbed her to cross this territory. Here. With them.
Ahead were the limestone heights where the old quarry was; the elders had built the town with limestone, but they took no more stone there nowadays except what they could bribe her brothers to bring down. Afraid, that was it; elders were afraid to cross the territory of the calibans. Youngers had this place, the deep pit where they had done blasting in the old days, and they owned the pile of loose stone that they loaded up and brought back when they wanted to trade. A lot of the youngers in the azi town came here, her brothers more than most, but the elders never would; and the main‑Camp elders, they huddled in their domes and defended themselves with electric lights and electric wires.
She caught a stitch in her side and slowed to a limp when she reached the old trail, which had been a road once upon a time, a rain‑washed road paved with limestone chips and overgrown with small brush and weeds and fallen away so that in some places it was wide enough for one walker only. She looked back when she made the turn–it was that kind of view that the eye had to go to, that sprawling perspective out over all the world, the lazy S of the Styx and the mounds of the calibans like wrinkled cloth strewn on both sides of it, some under the carpet of trees and some new and naked; and caliban domes that mimicked the domes of the main Camp.
Calibans had never made domes, her father said, until they saw the domes of main Camp; but they made them now, and larger and grander, raising great bald hills on this side and that of the Styx. Beyond them were the solid hills, the natural hills; and then the fields all checkered green and brown; and the rusting knot of giant machines–and the tower, the big shining tower that caught the sun and fed power to the little cluster of domes before the graveyard and the sea. All of that, in one blunt sweep of the eye, the whole world: and this height owned it all. That was why her brothers came here, to look down on all of it; but she was sixteen–not yet, her brothers said to her. Not yet for you.
What her parents said to her coming here–but they did everything the Council said; and saying no was part of it.
She began to run again, uphill, pushing past the brush, careless now because there was nothing but snakes to worry about up here in the day; and calibans ate snakes, and noise frightened both, so she made all the noise she could.
A whistle caught her ear, above her on the rim; she looked up, at a head that appeared over the rim of the cliffs, head and shoulders, black hair blowing on the wind. Her brother Zed. “I’ve got to come up,” she called.
“Come on up, then,” he called back. One had to be Permitted to come up to the heights; and she dusted her hands on her coveralls and came up the last few turns…stopped on that bald crest of stone slabs and scant brush and sat down panting for breath on the lefthand slab of the two that served them for a gate, there by a bitterberry. All her elder brothers were up here. And Jane Flanahan‑Gutierrez. Her eyes caught that with shock and jealousy. Jane Flanahan‑Gutierrez, from the main Camp, of the dark skin and the curling black hair…there with all the boys; and she knew at once what they had been doing up here–it was in her brothers’ eyes, like summer evening heat. They looked older, suddenly, like strangers. Jane looked that way too, disheveled clothes, her coveralls unzipped to here, staring at her as if she had been dirt. Her four older brothers, Jin and Mark and Zed and Tam; and the boys from down the row in town, Ben and Alf and Nine. They fronted her like a wall, her brothers the dark part of it and the Ben/Alf/Nine set all red and blond. And Jane Flanahan‑Gutierrez.