He was right. The circle principle was sound and embodied in Munsell’s writings: “Today a Purple, tomorrow a Grey,” I quoted. “Tomorrow a Yellow, a Blue today.”
“Simple, isn’t it? It’s not by chance the longest time anyone has been Grey is five generations.”
“In theory,” I said, since some families had “ovaled the circle” by being brightly hued for longer than was usual—the Oxbloods and the deMauves, the Cobalts and the Buttercups. In fact, the lack of Grey families was the chief reason for the overemployment problem—that and the lack of postcodes to reallocate.
The Apocryphal man shrugged.
“It’s only been going for five hundred years and might need some tweaking. Second question?”
“What happened to Robin Ochre?”
The Apocryphal man stared at me.
“Careful,” he said, “information can liberate but also imprisonate. Ochre was skittering right on the edge of the Rules and drew attention to himself.”
“You mean he was murdered?”
“They wouldn’t see it as such, and if it was murder, it was committed in a very pleasant way. I’ve not partaken of green myself, but I understand that if you have to go, the Green Room is an exceptionally agreeable way to do it.”
“Who murdered him?”
He shook his head and sighed deeply. “I blame myself. He had questions and I directed him toward the truth. But if you want answers in a world where hiding them is not only desirable but mandated, you have to take risks. I understand Zane is dead as well?”
“Yesterday at Vermillion. The Mildew.”
“It was as he expected,” he muttered. “Last question?”
“Are wheelbarrows made of bronze?”
The Apocryphal man raised an eyebrow.
“That’s it?”
I shrugged.
“Listen,” he said, “perhaps you don’t get it, but I was once a historian.
The closest thing you’ll ever get to meeting the Oracle. I can remember the days when Ford flatheads were the vehicles of choice, and Model Ts languished in museums. I’ve seen the advance of the rhododendron and the retreat of general knowledge. I’ve got more information in my head than you’ll forget in twelve lifetimes, and you ask me if wheelbarrows are made of bronze?”
“It’s been annoying me since this morning.”
The Apocryphal man tilted his head on one side and stared at me.
“Wheelbarrows aren’t made of bronze.”
“Then how did I fall on it when I trod the roadway last night? Perpetulite automatically removes all debris—except bronze, as far as I can see.”
“Be careful with all that dangerous reason,” he said after a pause. “The Collective abhors square pegs.”
“Unless the hole is meant to be square,” I said with a sudden erudition that surprised me, “in which case, all the round pegs are the ones that are wrong, and if the round hole is one that is not meant to be square, then the square ones will, no, hang on—”
“Shame,” said the historian, “and you were doing so well. Keep your head down, Edward. Those that see too much quickly find themselves seeing nothing at all.”
I didn’t really understand, but then I don’t think I was meant to.
“You’ve had your three questions. So here’s the the bonus snippet: Sally Gamboge uses Tommo for carnal relief.”
“That . . . explains quite a lot.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Being the invisible part of the Spectrum can be lonely, but one does get all the best gossip. Okay, this is the wisdom: First, time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.”
“That’s good wisdom.”
“It was good jam. And jam is knowledge. Will you be at the Chromogentsia meeting this evening?”
I told him that I would—but as a helper and unlikely to speak.
“I always drop by. It’s quite amusing, really—and the food is generally good.”
“I’ll see you there, then.”
“No, you won’t. I’m Apocryphal, remember?”
His Colorfulness Matthew Gloss
3.6.23.05.058: National Color employees are exempt from daily Useful Work.
I sat cross-legged on the window seat and watched the evening rain. It was a cloudburst of unusual heaviness, and in the distance peals of thunder could be heard. I watched as the gutters filled, then overflowed, and the path outside turned into a stream.
I picked up a piece of paper in order to write a list of the various puzzles in the village. I planned to start with the most intractable and work my way down. I wrote “Wheelbarrow” at the top, then stopped to think. After my conversation with the Apocryphal man I had returned to where I’d tripped over the wheelbarrow the previous night. The wheelbarrow was still there, resting on the grass beside the Perpetulite. I had put it back on the roadway and timed it. The Perpetulite had taken nine minutes and forty-seven seconds to sense that the wheelbarrow was foreign, and another five minutes and twenty-two seconds to remove it. Slower than the boulders we’d seen removed on the way to Rusty Hill, but the principle was the same. The problem was, it had been dark for over half an hour by the time I walked out there, so who—or what placed the wheelbarrow on the Perpetulite.
“Wheelbarrow?”
It was the Colorman, and he had walked up unnoticed because of the noise of the rain outside and read over my shoulder. I started to rise, but he magnanimously indicated for me to stay seated, then asked if he could join me.
“Of course,” I said, shuffling aside to let him sit.
“Writing a list?” he asked in a friendly manner.
“My birthday list,” I explained, then started to gabble. “It’s unusual, I know, and my birthday isn’t until October. We don’t have a garden, either—not one big enough to warrant a wheelbarrow, anyway—but I thought I might make a few extra cents by hiring out garden implements—with the prefect’s permission, of course.”
“A surfeit of information often hides an untruth,” he said, with annoying clarity.
“No untruth, sir. I’ll freely confess to feeling nervous in your company.”
He nodded, and seemed to accept my explanation. “Your father said you were interested in queues.”
I told him this was so.
“Then perhaps you can reveal why I never get into the fastest queue at the cafeteria back at National Color?”
“That’s easily explained,” I replied. “Since only one queue can be the quickest, in a set of five checkouts, eighty percent of the queues will be slower than the fastest. It’s not a question of your choosing badly.
It’s more that the odds are stacked against you.”
He thought about this for a moment. “So the more checkouts there are, the less chance I will have of getting into the fastest queue?”
“Absolutely,” I replied, “but conversely, if you were to reduce the number of queues to one, you would always be certain of being in the fastest.”
“I had no idea queuing could be so interesting,” he said, “nor that anyone might have invested so much thought in the matter.”
It was an ambiguous remark. It could have been either praise or criticism, but I was unsure which. I had skillfully avoided the wheelbarrow question, and now, as Jane had requested, I had to find out what he was doing here. But he had other things on his mind.