Her attention to Benzi masked her true thoughts. He was only a small creature demanding nourishment and care; she had formed no emotional bond with the boy. She looked at his small, golden-skinned face and felt nothing; guilt kept her at his side. She wondered if the knowledge of her approaching departure kept her from loving him, or if that feeling would always have been absent. She came to realize that her son meant less to her than her dream.
She had once seen the child as a way to gain what she wanted; now, she wondered if she would ever really care for him and how he would feel if he ever knew how she felt. She bathed him, fed him, rocked him in her arms, and sang to him while she worried that she was planning to do him a great wrong.
Iris awoke. Her eyelids felt gritty. She had hardly slept, even though Angharad had moved Benzi’s cradle to her own room a few days ago so that Iris could get more rest. She huddled in her bed, almost unable to move. Benzi had been weaned; Iris had gone through her belongings, packing the few things she would take with her. The day had finally come; she would be leaving.
She threw back her coverings and sat up. Her stomach fluttered as apprehension warred with anticipation. What if she failed at the school? Other students might be better prepared than she. What if the work was too hard for her? She shivered at the thought, which had been plaguing her for a week, ever since the town’s New Year’s celebration. Angharad, as part of her mayoral duties, had given a short speech about their expectations for the coming year of 539, and had faltered when mentioning that her daughter would then take up a student’s obligations; Angharad would be pleased if she failed and had to come home.
She couldn’t fail. The Nomarchies would not have chosen her, wasted extra credit on her, and paid the commune for the loss of her labor if she were not ready for a school. She would not allow herself to fail.
She washed quickly, returned to her room to dress, then hurried downstairs. The household had gathered around the long table in the middle of the kitchen, where Sheryl was dishing out oatmeal from a large bowl. Benzi rested in Angharad’s arms as she fed him his bottle. Iris felt a pang; the boy would not miss her.
“Let me see,” LaDonna called out. Iris held up her arms as she displayed her new green tunic and pants, then thrust out her left arm, showing her identity bracelet. “Are you sure you’ll be warm enough in that?”
“I have my coat,” Iris replied. “It’ll be warmer in Caracas.”
“Are you coming home for the next harvest?” Tyree asked.
“I don’t know,” Iris said. “They’ll be giving me a lot of work to do.” Angharad lowered her eyes. “I’m sure I’ll get some time to visit,” Iris added hastily, not sure at all.
She sat down at the table between Lilia and Constance and forced herself to eat as she listened to the household’s advice:
“There are thieves in cities. Make sure you don’t wander around with anything valuable they can steal.”
“Don’t stay in the port too long. Someone’ll try to sell you something and you’ll never see either your credit or what you bought.”
“Make sure your door is always locked. Don’t ever open it to anyone you don’t know.”
“Don’t talk to strangers. You don’t know what they’ll want.”
“If you want a man, try to find a good Plainsman. You don’t know what kinds of habits or sick practices others might have.”
“Don’t eat any food unless you know what it is and where it came from. Make sure you get plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, even if they cost you more there. Don’t eat any meat unless it’s good North American or Argentinian beef — you don’t want any of that animal tissue they clone in vats.”
“Don’t study too hard. It’ll unbalance you and drive you mad. If you read too much, you’ll strain your eyes and go blind and have to have a cornea transplant or special lenses put in.”
Iris was silent as she absorbed the advice of women who had never left Lincoln. Only Julia, who alone knew something of the outside world from experience, said nothing.
She ate hastily, then rose. “I’d better go. The floater’s probably already here.”
Angharad tried to thrust Benzi at her. “Kiss your son.”
Iris shook her head. “Please. That’ll just make it harder.”
Tears rolled down Angharad’s cheeks. “We’ll take good care of him,” she wailed. “You make sure you send him messages. It doesn’t matter what you say, but I want him to see your image, and remember you.” She sniffed. “I’d go with you to the floater, but I can’t have people see me like this.”
“Please. It’s all right. It’ll be easier for us if you don’t come with me. You can all stay.” Iris kissed her mother quickly, then hugged Julia, who seemed almost ready to cry herself. Other arms reached for her. At last Iris managed to extricate herself from their embraces. “I have to go. I’ll send you a message as soon as I can.”
She entered the hall, trailed by LaDonna and her daughter Mira. “I’ll look out for Chen when he visits,” the dark-haired woman said.
Iris smiled gratefully. “You’d think I was going away forever.”
“In a way, you are.”
Iris’s gray coat was lying on top of her bags. She pulled on her coat, then hoisted the bags to her shoulders, trying to remember if she had forgotten anything. Mira waved at her solemnly as Iris stepped toward the door. The young girl would be almost a woman by the time Iris completed her studies. Iris felt a twinge of guilt. She had taught Mira how to read a few simple sentences before Tyree’s mockery and the girl’s own lack of aptitude had made Mira give up on trying to learn anything more. Perhaps Iris might have encouraged Mira if she had stayed.
Iris turned away and stepped outside; it was too late to think of that now.
Eric and Laiza were waiting in the street. Laiza had returned that fall, ostensibly for the fall festival, but she had never gone back to Denver. She had been unwilling to talk of her short-lived job, saying only that she had missed Lincoln. Eric took one of the bags from Iris as they began to walk south.
“You make sure you send me messages,” Laiza said, even though she rarely had during her own absence.
“I will.” Iris glanced at Eric. He seemed sullen; in recent weeks, she had wondered if he might be resenting her departure. “Chen’ll be back sometime next month for a bit. Make sure you get him some commissions.”
“I already have a few.” Eric adjusted the hood of his jacket with his free hand. “We would have come inside before, but I didn’t know —”
“You were right not to. Angharad’s pretty upset. Maybe you could visit her tonight.”
The weather had grown warmer, at least temporarily; the snow was beginning to melt, muddying the road. Faces peered out at the three from the windows of the houses they passed; Iris lifted her head.
The floater was in the elongated bowl of its cradle; the long, silver dirigible cast a shadow over the small group of townspeople standing near it. As Iris crossed the field and came closer to them, a few waved at her; one woman held up her child. “Take a good look, Sarah,” the woman said. “She’s going to be a student.”
Another woman sniffed. “That’s all very well, and a credit to us all, but a farmer has nothing to be ashamed of, either.”
Daria was standing near Winnie, who was bragging to a couple of men who stood on the floater’s ramp stretching their legs. “There she is now!” Winnie cried as she gestured at Iris. “She’s the one who’s going to that school in Caracas. It just goes to show you. Anyone clever enough can rise, even if she isn’t the child of a Linker. We grow more than wheat in Lincoln.”
“She always was smart,” Daria said, with an edge to her voice. “Used to go off by herself to study.” The red-haired girl’s smile bore a trace of malice. “Wouldn’t tell us what she was doing.”
“Silly girl,” another woman said. “She needn’t have made such a secret thing of that. Who knows? She might even become a Linker herself one day, and that can only help all of
us.”
“Good-bye, dear,” Winnie said, waving one chubby hand. Laiza hugged Iris as Eric clasped her fingers. She freed herself, took her other bag from Eric, and began to walk up the ramp toward the open door above. The two men on the ramp let her pass, then followed her inside.
A tall, thin man was standing in the aisle between the rows of seats. “Iris Angharads?” He pointed with one long finger down the aisle. “Straight down, first door on your left. Seems you get one of the rooms.” She hesitated. “Better get settled in. We’ll be leaving soon.”
She walked down the aisle. Passengers turned from the windows on either side of the cabin and watched her; she thought she heard a few whispers. There were seats for over two hundred passengers, though only half that number were present; all of them seemed to be staring at her, the new curiosity in their midst. She kept her head down and stared at the blue carpeting under her feet, grateful that she would be traveling in a room. More whispers followed her; she refused to look up.
“Stuck-up,” she heard one man mutter. “Must think she knows it all already.”
She passed the food and beverage dispensers and found herself in a short, windowless corridor. She pressed her hand against a door on her left; it hummed as its scanner read her bracelet, then opened.
She entered. She was inside a tiny, bare room with a small, cushioned blue chair that stood next to a small round window. “Greetings,” said an impersonal female voice, speaking in Anglaic, “and welcome aboard. This will be your room during your journey, but please feel free to join your fellow passengers outside when you wish.” Iris set her bags on the floor. “You will note a small door in the corner. This leads to your washroom and toilet. Next to that door, you will find a blue button. Press the button when you want to retire, and your bed will be lowered from the wall; for bed retraction, press that button again. Food and drink are available in the dispensers you passed on your way here. Please dispose of all receptacles properly in the recycler next to the dispensers. If you have understood these instructions, please respond by saying, ‘Yes, I have understood.’ Have a pleasant journey.”
Iris sank into the seat. From the window, she could see the townsfolk wandering back to Lincoln over the snow-patched ground. Her throat tightened. She suddenly wanted to run from the floater, back to her home and the safety of her household. I’m not ready, she thought.
“Salaam,” the voice said, and began to drone out a new set of instructions in Arabic.
“Yes, I have understood,” Iris called out. The voice broke off in midsentence.
The ground was dropping slowly away from her; the cradle had released them. She pressed her nose against the window as the snow-covered roofs of Lincoln drifted out of her sight.
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Part Two
Sixteen
March 539
From: Iris Angharads, Cytherian Institute, Caracas, Nomarchy of Nueva Hispania
To: Liang Chen, Commune of Angharad Julias, Lincoln, Nomarchy of the Plains Communes
Private Communication
I should have sent you a message before, I know. I guess I was overwhelmed when I first arrived, so all I did was let Angharad know I’d arrived safely, and then, by the time I was ready to send you a message, she sent me one and told me you’d be back in Lincoln soon, so I decided to wait.
I’m just making excuses for myself. I didn’t want to send a message to anyone because, for the first couple of months, I wasn’t sure I’d be staying here. I can admit that now. I just wasn’t prepared for what it would be like.
I’d better start at the beginning. By the time I got to Caracas, the floater had picked up five more students on the way. It would have been quicker to come here on a suborbital flight, and I was wondering why the Institute didn’t just send me to a city where I could have caught one, but I think the Institute wanted us to have time to talk to other students, get acquainted so we wouldn’t arrive not knowing anyone. We all had rooms on the floater until we got to San Antonio, and maybe that was just as well, because whenever we were in the rest of the cabin, people kept avoiding us. One of the other students with me was a Linker’s son, but the others were just like me — they’d never been away from their towns, never thought they’d really be chosen.
And guess what! One of them was Alexandra Lenas. I finally met her. I told you about her, didn’t I? I used to talk to her a lot over the screen, but after I was expecting Benzi, I just couldn’t, because I didn’t know what to say to her about that. I was surprised at how uneasy I felt around her, and I think she felt the same way at first. We’d gotten along so well over the screen that I think we were both wondering if we still would, but after a while, it was fine. I think she was a little surprised that I’d been chosen, frankly. Well, so was I!
One of the boys, Richard Matties, has a son too. He told me a little about his boy and I told him about Benzi, and that was probably a mistake, because I started feeling guilty again about leaving him. It’s easier for Richard. He’s only seen his son a couple of times, and he’s just the father anyway. Well, you know what I mean.
Anyway, when we got to the port, we didn’t know how we were going to find our way around it, let alone around the city. You have to take the tubeway train just to get from the floater cradle area to where the suborbitals land. But we’d all seen images of the port, and we’d been told where to go, so it could have been worse.
As soon as we were inside the nearest wing of the building, a couple of ragged-looking boys came up to us and asked us where we were going and offered to take us to the school for some credit, but Anthony — the Linker’s son — warned us not to have anything to do with them. It seems that sometimes they’ll show you the way, but other times, they’ll simply lure you to some out-of-the-way place and force you to give them your codes. Then, by the time anybody traces you or you get away, they’ve exchanged your credit for coins or bills and have disappeared. I would have thought thieves could be easily tracked, but apparently there are too many of them, so the authorities tend to concentrate on the ones who murder their victims. Oh, that makes it sound awful, and Anthony says that Caracas is actually fairly safe. Well, you probably know all this, since you’ve traveled so much, but I was beginning to wish I were back in Lincoln even before leaving the port.
The port wasn’t quite like the images I’d seen. The halls were the same, endless white walls with open doors and polished brown floors, but the noise was deafening. People were running to catch tubeway trains, sitting in the corridors, gathering in the rooms — I’ve never seen so many people in my life. I think everyone in Lincoln could have fitted into that one area of the port. We’d been advised to wait in one particular room near the entrance we came through, so we went there and met some other students. A few were from the Arctic Nomarchy, and they were looking a little uncomfortable even without their coats, and the others had arrived from Azania.
We started talking while we waited, telling the others a little about ourselves, and then I began to notice something odd. Nearly everyone, except for Anthony, came from a family or a place where students were hardly ever chosen for schools; we were all practically the first people in our towns or areas chosen as students. One of the boys from Azania said that might be because the Nomarchies had decided to give more people a chance, that they’ve finally realized that we’re wasted in our homes.
Anthony was smiling when he heard that, as if he didn’t believe a word of it. He has kind of a disdainful expression anyway, with very fine features and a thin mouth and grayish, wintry eyes, but he was almost sneering this time. I got up then to go into the hall to get a drink from a dispenser, and Anthony came with me to get some food, and then he began to mock the other boy and said he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Whydid they pick us, then?” I asked him.
He said, “I thought you might be smarter than that. They picked you because you’d be grateful, because you’d be so happy for this chance that you’d do
whatever the Nomarchies ask. That’s what they need on the Islands now — people who’ll give their lives to the Project but who won’t forget who gave them the chance.”
So I asked, “Why did they pick you, then? You’re a Linker’s son. You don’t have to be grateful.”
He didn’t answer for a while. He just stared at the people passing us and wouldn’t look at me until we were back at the entrance to our room. Then he said that they’d probably picked some Linkers’ children for the Cytherian Institute so that we’d think it was a real school instead of just a place where the humble and underprivileged could be molded into willing servants of the Mukhtars’ interests. That was exactly the way he put it.
He made me angry. That remark about being humble was bad enough. My mother’s a mayor, and I’ll bet her line goes back as far as his on the Plains, if not further. But what was worse is that he was making it seem as if we hadn’t done anything, as if being chosen was no accomplishment at all. After all, if we had ability, they could pick us for whatever other reasons they wanted; it didn’t matter. Then Anthony muttered something about giving certain people a way out so that they wouldn’t be frustrated or cause trouble.
I was about to start arguing with him about it, but when we went inside, an older student was waiting to take us to the Institute. That surprised me. I thought someone working for the port, or a servo, would do that.
The student’s name was Esteban. He gave each of us a pocket map. You press a button, and it shows where in Caracas you are; then, you say your destination, and it shows you the routes to it by tube or hovercar or on foot. But Esteban warned us not to wander around too much until we learned more about the city and which places to avoid; apparently those pocket maps don’t show you what might be risky. There’s a story that a student once walked through the district bordering the shuttle spaceport field and was lured into a tavern, where he got drunk and signed a contract with an asteroid miner and was never seen again. I don’t know if it’s true; you’d think the Institute could have argued that his student’s contract superseded anything else he signed, but then, he wouldn’t have been in much of a position to argue that point, and maybe the Institute didn’t think it was worth the bother. Some of the areas around the port are supposed to be the worst, which figures. Most of the people there live on Basic.
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