The autumn he and Fred turned fourteen, the two lads changed over for the last time and took their permanent place in the dads' gaffs. Then a peculiar thing happened to Sy. While he was still growing up he had never thought to question any of the kids about what they felt at Changeover — mummytime was for mummies, daddy time for daddies. He knew that, like him, they left their mummyselves on the east bank of the stream and that even their most recent memories of cuddleup and snuggledown were as half-remembered dreams.
Yet, when he changed over for the last time Symun Deviish took his mummyself with him — not entire but enough of it for him to feel marked out from the other Hamstermen. Unlike Fred, Sy couldn't prevent himself from looking at the mummies and kids when he saw them together — he even had eyes for the old boilers. Fred noticed it and teased him, saying, If U wanna lookit byrds, vares plenny uv opares on vis syde uv ve streem. Although Sy became more circumspect, Effi noticed his gaze as well, and when she returned it, Sy saw in turn that she knew what had happened, she understood what she had done by seeding his fertile imagination with such potent lore. She smiled at him often and strangely. However, he couldn't detect much love in these smiles, only fear.
— Eyem gonna go onna bí! Symun called to the rest of the gang, C if vairs anyfing bettah ovah vair!
And Fred called back:
— Yeah, orlrì, but nó 2 fa.
— Eye ear yer, Symun called back, while to himself he said, Sillë gí.
He shouldered his mattock and pushed his way between two banks of pricklebush that scratched him through his shirt. It was an overcast day in SEP and a year since Symun's Changeover. Foggy rags snagged at the soaking foliage and the screenwasher was on. This was good weather for gathering building material, the soil loose and yielding. If they found a pile of brickwork, beat back the undergrowth, then wedged and wielded their mattocks efficiently, the morta would crumble away and the individual bricks tumble from the earth — Dave's bounty for the young dads of Ham.
At Council that first tariff the five young dads had asked if they could go to the edge of the Ferbiddun Zön and fetch some brick to repair the pedalo gaff. It took most of the rest of the tariff for consensus to emerge, for each of the nine older dads had a view, and they all had tremendous affection for the sound of their own voices. There were moto gibbets to be built, fowling equipment to be repaired, the pedalo needed caulking — however, eventually permission was given. It mattered that it was Fred Ridmun's idea. The whole community understood that despite Fred's youth he would be the new Guvnor once Dave Brudi was dead, and the way the old dad retched and hawked blood that couldn't be far off. It was an important liberty for the five to be alone together for a shift. In the next year duty would bear down still more heavily upon them. Caff Funch, old Benni's daughter, was already knocked up by Fred — more of them would become dads soon enough. Meanwhile the older generation was passing into the shadows. Ham, as was the way every thirty years or so, stood on the cusp.
The posse had worked hard and soon amassed sufficient brick, so Sy's desire to press further into the zone wasn't governed by any necessity. The impulse puzzled him — he felt the place's aura as strongly as any of his companions did — perhaps even more. He had been among the most enthusiastic of the Hamsters when the bounds of the zone had been beaten that buddout. He had lashed at the sawleaf and fireweed with such frenzy that the granddads had muttered among themselves: Eye rekkun ees earin Dave on iz interkom. Now, the impulse to go further in, further than he had ever ventured before, was provoked as much by the need to be alone with his secret mummyness as by any thought of what he might find there.
Beyond the clearing in which Symun found himself the true zone began. The yellow-flowering pricklebush was the plant of the zone margin; in the interior it ceded to glossy-leafed rhodies that clambered over the hypogean brickwork, cracking it with their woody roots. These dense shrubs had enormous white flowers, exuding a heady aroma that kept the insects away from the zone. In turn, there was nothing for the landfowl to eat — not that there were many of these on Ham anyway, certainly compared to Chil or the rest of Ing. Only handfuls of toms and bobs nested on the island, together with the ubiquitous flying rats.
An occasional green ringneck whirred over Symun's head, and he could hear, higher up in the clouds, the unceasing lament of the gulls. At ground level the zone was eerily quiet — even the voices of his mates, scant paces away, sounded muffled and distant. The motos also found rhodies unpalatable, while in the very heart of the zone there were Utrees poisonous to them. The granddads also claimed that the rats — which the motos kept down elsewhere on Ham — had colonies deep in the zone, vast and labyrinthine nests from which they would emerge to gnaw to the bone any Hamster fool enough to breach taboo. Symun doubted this — what could such rat colonies live on? There was no wheatie hereabouts, and, while gulls nested on the rocky bluffs of the eastern shore, even massed rats were no match for aggressive oilgulls and blackwings. Besides, posses of Hamstermen often went along these bluffs, netting prettybeaks in season; if there were rats there he would have seen them for himself. No, the rat colonies were intended to frighten off anyone brave or foolhardy enough to penetrate too far into the zone; they were part of the mystique of the place.
As if the zone needed any more mystique — to Symun it was thickly permeated by Dave's prophecies of the world that had been and the world that would come again. He pushed on past the thicket, feeling the waxy rhodie leaves cool and damp on his exposed arms. The cries of his companions came again as Symun shouldered his way on into the zone, but he ignored them. Another ringneck flew whirring overhead in a greenish blur — and he took this to be a good omen, an excuse to push on still further.
After another hundred paces Symun sat down on a mound and lowered his head between his knees. He breathed deeply, inhaling the atmosphere of the place, its brooding silence redolent of ancient abandonment. Muttering to himself he scrabbled in the mud: Vare ass 2 B sum, vare awlways iz, awl U gotta do iz dig. Sure enough, he soon exposed a corner of brickwork encrusted with a rough rind of morta. Holding his mattock close to its blade, slowly and deliberately Symun bludgeoned the earth, until the beginnings of a substantial course were revealed. London bricks: the very stuff of Dave, created by Him, the material that old London had been built from and out of which New London was rising once more — or so Mister Greaves assured them. When the Hamstermen dug up courses of these sacred artefacts from the undergrowth, most were too cracked and weathered to be of use. However, if they broke off the outer layer there were almost always one or two inside that retained their vivid redness, their sharp edges and their incised legend: LONDON BRICK.
Here, alone, deep in the Ferbiddun Zön for the first time in his life, Symun Dévúsh allowed what had, up until now, been only stray intuitions and inchoate thoughts to coalesce. How could it be, he wondered, that his mummy's account of Ham and that of the dävine dads were both true? Where the other Hamstermen remained credulous, he sensed a profound jibing between the old natural religion of the island and the doctrine of the Book. What was the truth? The answer — if there were one — must lie here.
Then Symun heard a rustling in the bushes behind him and leaped to his feet, staring wildly about at the rhodies. Scuttling into his fevered mind came all the sharp-toothed fears that infested the zone, protecting its secrets. Symun's curiosity vanished, swallowed up by terror — he'd been crazy to stray this far in, he must get out. His throat constricted, his breath bulged in his lungs, he felt himself losing consciousness. Then, a blunt, pink muzzle parted the glossy leaves and he was staring straight into the baby-blue eyes of Champ.