“Handel. So, listen,” I said, my inhibitions lowered by the lime, “what did you do to get sent off to Reboot?”
He thought for a moment before answering.
“Do you know why residents are discouraged from relocating within the Collective?”
I knew that travel was limited, but I had never thought to question the reason.
“To stop the spread of Mildew and disrespectful jokes about Purples, I should imagine.”
“It’s to save the postal service from descending into chaos.”
“That’s a nonsensical suggestion,” I retorted.
“Is it? Centuries of unregulated relocation have created a terrible burden. A letter might have to be redirected any number of times, as its mail route would have to follow not only your own but all your ancestors’ meanderings around the Collective.”
This was true. The Russetts had moved only twice since we were downgraded, so we could receive mail in two days. By contrast, the ancient and well-traveled Oxbloods, with their prestigious SW3 postcode, were on an eighty-seven-point redirection service, and would be lucky to receive mail in nine weeks, if at all.
“A bit nutty,” I conceded, “but it works, doesn’t it?”
“On the contrary. If you, or an ancestor of yours, had lived in the same place more than once, the mail redirection service defaults to the earlier redirection and goes around again. Three-quarters of the postal service does nothing but move post that is stuck in perpetual redirection loops and is never delivered at all. But here’s the really stupid bit: The postal service’s operating parameters are enshrined in the Rules and can’t be changed, so Head Office reduced personal relocation in order to impose a lesser burden on the postal service.”
“That’s insane,” I said, my tongue still loosened by the lime.
“That’s the Rules,” said the Yellow, “and the Rules are infallible, remember?”
This was true, too. The Word of Munsell was the Rules, and the Rules were the Word of Munsell. They regulated everything we did, and had brought peace to the Collective for nearly four centuries. They were sometimes very odd indeed: The banning of the number that lay between 72 and 74 was a case in point, and no one had ever fully explained why it was forbidden to count sheep, make any new spoons or use acronyms. But they were the Rules—and presumably for some very good reason, although what that might be was not entirely obvious.
“So where do you come into this?” I asked.
“I used to work in the main sorting office in Cobalt. I attempted to circumvent the Rules with a loophole to stop redirections for long-deceased recipients. When that failed, I wrote to Head Office to complain. I got one of their ‘your request is being considered’ form letters. Then another. After the sixth I gave up and set fire to three tons of undeliverable mail outside the post office.”
“That must have been quite a blaze.”
“We cooked spuds in the embers.”
“I suggested a better way to queue once,” I said in a lame attempt to show Travis he wasn’t the only one with radical tendencies, “a single line feeding multiple servers at lunch.”
“How did that go down?”
“Not very well. I was fined thirty merits for ‘insulting the simple purity of the queue.’ ”
“You should have registered it as a Standard Variable.”
“Does that work?”
Travis said that it did. The Standard Variable procedure was in place to allow very minor changes of the Rules. The most obvious example was the “Children under ten are to be given a glass of milk and a smack at 11:00 a.m.” Rule, which for almost two hundred years was interpreted as the literal Word of Munsell, and children were given the glass of milk and then clipped around the ear. It took a brave prefect to point out—tactfully, of course—that this was doubtless a spelling mistake, and should have read “snack.” It was blamed on a scribe’s error rather than Rule fallibility, and the Variable was adopted.
Most loopholes and Leapback circumvention were based on Standard Variables. Another good example would be the train we were riding on now. Although “The Railways” had been banned during Leapback III, a wily travel officer had postulated that a singular rail way was still allowable—hence the gyro-stabilized inverted monorail in current usage. It was loopholery at its very best.
“It’s not generally known, but anyone can apply for a Standard Variable,” explained Travis, “and all the Council can say is no.”
“Which they will.”
“Sure, but at least you’re covered.”
I finished making the tea, and then looked for some biscuits, without success.
“Hey,” said Travis, as he had an idea, “what’s this East Carmine place like?”
“I don’t know. It’s Outer Fringes—so pretty wild, I should imagine.”
“Sounds perfect. Who knows? A fellow Yellow may take pity on me and negotiate a pardon. Do you have five merits on you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ll buy them off you for ten.”
“What’s the point in that?”
“You’re going to have to trust me.”
Intrigued, I handed over a five-merit note.
“Thanks. Now snitch on me to the Duty Yellow when we arrive at East Carmine.”
I agreed to this, then thought for a moment. “Can I have another peek of your lime?”
“Okay.”
So I did, and I felt all peculiar again, and told Travis rather gushingly that I was going to marry an Oxblood.
“Which one?”
“Constance.”
“Never heard of her.”
“About time!” scolded the Green woman when I finally returned, tea in hand. “What were you doing?
Gossiping like the worst sort of Grey?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And my biscuit? Where is my biscuit?”
“There were no biscuits, ma’am—not even nasty ones.”
“Humph,” she said, in the manner of someone horribly aggrieved. “Then another tea, boy, for my husband.”
I looked at the Green man, who until his wife had mentioned it had not considered that he wanted a cup.
“Oh!” he said, “What a good idea. Milk with one—”
“He’s not going,” said my father without looking up from his copy of Spectrum.
“It’s all right,” I said, thinking about Travis and his lime, “I’ll go.”
“No,” said Dad more firmly, “you won’t.”
The Green couple stared at us, incredulous.
“I’m sorry,” said the Green man with a nervous laugh. “For a moment there I thought you said he wasn’t going.”
“That’s precisely what I said,” repeated Dad in an even tone, still not looking up.
“And why would that be?” demanded the Green woman in a voice shrill with self-righteous indignation.
“Because you didn’t use the magic word.”
“We don’t have to use the magic word.”
Living in a Green sector as a Red had never endeared the hue to my father. Although the Spectrum was well represented in Jade-under-Lime, there was a predominance of Greens, which tended to push a pro-Green agenda, and Dad was only a holiday relief swatchman because he’d been pushed from a permanent position by a Green swatchman. In any event, Dad had seen enough not to be pushed around.
I’d never traveled with him before, but it was rather exciting to see him defy those further up in the Spectrum.
“If your son is unwilling or unable to do a simple chore, I’m sure we can ask the Yellow to conciliate on the matter,” continued the Green man in a threatening manner, nodding his head in the direction of the Yellow passenger. “Unless,” he added, suddenly thinking that he might have made a terrible mistake, “I have the honor of addressing a prefect?”