“Don’t forget your mask,” he said.
She stopped short. “Thanks for reminding me,” she said. Her hand left his arm, and after a moment, came back. They walked on.
Their footsteps changed, became muted by space, and a breeze cooled his face below the bandage; they were in the plaza. “Snowflake’s” hand on his arm drew him in a diagonal leftward course, away from the direction of the Institute.
“When we get where we’re going,” she said, “I’m going to put a piece of tape over your bracelet; over mine too. We avoid knowing one another’s namebers as much as possible. I know yours—I’m the one who spotted you—but the others don’t; all they know is that I’m bringing a promising member. Later on, one or two of them may have to know it.”
“Do you check the history of everyone who’s assigned here?”
“No. Why?”
“Isn’t that how you ‘spotted’ me, by finding out that I used to think about classifying myself?”
“Three steps down here,” she said. “No, that was only confirmation. And two and three. What I spotted was a look you have, the look of a member who isn’t one-hundred-per-cent in the bosom of the Family. You’ll learn to recognize it too, if you join us. I found out who you were, and then I went to your room and saw that picture on the wall.”
“The horse?”
“No, Marx Writing,” she said. “Of course the horse. You draw the way no normal member would even think of drawing. I checked your history then, after I’d seen the picture.”
They had left the plaza and were on one of the walkways west of it—K or L, he wasn’t sure which.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he said. “Someone else drew that picture.”
“You drew it,” she said; “you’ve claimed charcoal and sketch pads.”
“For the member who drew it. A friend of mine at academy.”
“Well that’s interesting,” she said. “Cheating on claims is a better sign than anything. Anyway, you liked the picture well enough to keep it and frame it. Or did your friend make the frame too?”
He smiled. “No, I did,” he said. “You didn’t miss a thing.”
“We turn here, to the right.”
“Are you an adviser?”
“Me? Hate, no.”
“But you can pull histories?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you at the Institute?”
“Don’t ask so many questions,” she said. “Listen, what do you want us to call you? Instead of Li RM.”
“Oh,” he said. “Chip.”
“‘Chip’? No,” she said, “don’t just say the first thing that comes into your mind. You ought to be something like ‘Pirate’ or ‘Tiger.’ The others are King and Lilac and Leopard and Hush and Sparrow.”
“Chip’s what I was called when I was a boy,” he said. “I’m used to it.”
“All right,” she said, “but it’s not what I would have chosen. Do you know where we are?”
“No.”
“Fine. Left now.”
They went through a door, up steps, through another door, and into an echoing hall of some kind, where they walked and turned, walked and turned, as if by-passing a number of irregularly placed objects. They walked up a stopped escalator and along a corridor that curved toward the right.
She stopped him and asked for his bracelet. He raised his wrist, and his bracelet was pressed tight and rubbed. He touched it; there was smoothness instead of his nameber. That and his sightlessness made him suddenly feel disembodied; as if he were about to drift from the floor, drift right out through whatever walls were around him and up into space, dissolve there and become nothing.
She took his arm again. They walked farther and stopped. He heard a knock and two more knocks, a door opening, voices stilling. “Hi,” she said, leading him forward. “This is Chip. He insists on it.”
Chairs scuffed against the floor, voices gave greetings. A hand took his and shook it. “I’m King,” a member said, a man. “I’m glad you decided to come.”
“Thanks,” he said.
Another hand gripped his harder. “Snowflake says you’re quite an artist”—an older man than King. “I’m Leopard.”
Other hands came quickly, women: “Hello, Chip; I’m Lilac.” “And I’m Sparrow. I hope you’ll become a regular.” “I’m Hush, Leopard’s wife. Hello.” The last one’s hand and voice were old; the other two were young.
He was led to a chair and sat in it. His hands found tabletop before him, smooth and bare, its edge slightly curving; an oval table or a large round one. The others were sitting down; Snowflake on his right, talking; someone else on his left. He smelled something burning, sniffed to make sure. None of the others seemed aware of it. “Something’s burning,” he said.
“Tobacco,” the old woman, Hush, said on his left.
“Tobacco?” he said.
“We smoke it,” Snowflake said. “Would you like to try some?”
“No,” he said.
Some of them laughed. “It’s not really deadly,” King said, farther away on his left. “In fact, I suspect it may have some beneficial effects.”
“It’s very pleasing,” one of the young women said, across the table from him.
“No, thanks,” he said.
They laughed again, made comments to one another, and one by one grew silent. His right hand on the tabletop was covered by Snowflake’s hand; he wanted to draw it away but restrained himself. He had been stupid to come. What was he doing, sitting there sightless among those sick false-named members? His own abnormality was nothing next to theirs. Tobacco! The stuff had been extincted a hundred years ago; where the hate had they got it?
“We’re sorry about the bandage, Chip,” King said. “I assume Snowflake’s explained why it’s necessary.”
“She has,” Chip said, and Snowflake said, “I did.” Her hand left Chip’s; he drew his from the tabletop and took hold of his other in his lap.
“We’re abnormal members, which is fairly obvious,” King said. “We do a great many things that are generally considered sick. We think they’re not. We know they’re not.” His voice was strong and deep and authoritative; Chip visualized him as large and powerful, about forty. “I’m not going to go into too many details,” he said, “because in your present condition you would be shocked and upset, just as you’re obviously shocked and upset by the fact that we smoke tobacco. You’ll learn the details for yourself in the future, if there is a future as far as you and we are concerned.”
“What do you mean,” Chip said, “’in my present condition?”
There was silence for a moment. A woman coughed. “While you’re dulled and normalized by your most recent treatment,” King said.
Chip sat still, facing in King’s direction, stopped by the irrationality of what he had said. He went over the words and answered them: “I’m not dulled and normalized.”
“But you are,” King said.
“The whole Family is,” Snowflake said, and from beyond her came “Everyone, not just you”—in the old man’s voice of Leopard.
“What do you think a treatment consists of?” King asked.
Chip said, “Vaccines, enzymes, the contraceptive, sometimes a tranquilizer—”
“Always a tranquilizer,” King said. “And LPK, which minimizes aggressiveness and also minimizes joy and perception and every other fighting thing the brain is capable of.”
“And a sexual depressant,” Snowflake said.
“That too,” King said. “Ten minutes of automatic sex once a week is barely a fraction of what’s possible.”