He was shocked. But she seemed to know what was right, and she was not upset. So he just walked behind her, wondering if somehow the Computers had glitched up and he was supposed to have gotten tape to explain all this and help him not make mistakes. He had, he thought, to talk to the Super where they were going.
They got to the other place. Catlin keyed in, and there was a Super sitting at a desk. “Ser,” Catlin said. “Catlin and Florian, ser.”
“Late,” the Super said.
“Yes, ser,” Catlin said.
“My fault,” Florian said. “Ser,—”
“Excuses don’t matter. You’re Assigned to Security. You go into Staging, you pick out what you think you might need. And both of you will be right. All right. Fifteen minutes to get your equipment. You do mess, you’ve got this evening to plan it out, you’ll do a Room tomorrow morning. It’s a one-hour course, you can talk about it. You’re supposed to. Go.”
“I—” he said. “Ser, I have to feed the pigs. I—Am I supposed to have gotten tape about this? I haven’t.”
The Super looked straight at him. “Florian, you’ll do AG when you aren’t doing Security. This is your Assignment. You can go to AG in your Rec time. Four hours Rec time for every good pass through the Room. There isn’t any tape for this. It’s up at 0500, drill at 0530, breakfast at 0630, then tape, Room, or Rec, whatever the schedule calls for; noon mess as you can catch it, follow your schedule; evening mess at 2000, follow your schedule, in bunks at 2300 most nights. If you’ve got any problems you talk to your Instructor. Catlin knows. Ask her.”
“Yes, ser,” Florian breathed, thinking: What about Andy? What about the pigs? They said I could go to AG. And because the Super had answered and he was terribly afraid this was the right Assignment, he caught up with Catlin.
It was a Staging-room, like in the Game he knew. His old Super had said it was an Assignment, there would be Rooms, all of this he knew: it would be like Rooms he had done before and he would be more out of Security than AG after this.
But it was not right. He was supposed to bunk with a girl. He was put into a place she knew and he didn’t. He was going to make more mistakes. They always said a Super would never refuse to talk to you, but the one back there made him afraid he was already making mistakes.
Like being late to start with.
He came into the Staging-room behind Catlin; he knew it was going to be a Security kind of Room, and he was not terribly shocked to find guns and knives on the table with the tools, but he didn’t even want to touch them, and there was a queasy feeling in his stomach when Catlin picked up a gun. He grabbed pliers and a circuit-tester; Catlin took a length of fine cord and he started through the components tray, grabbing things and stuffing them into his pockets by categories.
“Electronics?” she asked.
“Yes. Military?”
“Security. You know weapons?”
“No.”
“Better not have one, then. What kind are your Rooms?”
“Traps. Alarms.”
Catlin’s pale brows went up. She nodded, looking more friendly. “Ambushes. There’s usually an Enemy. He’ll kill you.”
“So will traps.”
“Are you good?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
And he was staring again. Her face had been bothering him all along. It was like he knew her. He knew her the way you knew things from tape. Maybe she was remembering him too just then, the way she was staring. He was not completely surprised, except that it had happened at all: tape never surprised him. He knew it was not a mistake if he knew her from tape. She was supposed to be important to him, if that was the case, the way his studies were important, and he had never thought that was supposed to happen until he was Contracted to somebody.
But she was azi. Like him.
And she knew all about her Assignment and he was new and full of mistakes.
“I think I’m supposed to know you,” he said, worried.
“Same,” she said.
No one had ever paid that much attention to him. Not even Andy. And he felt shaky, to know he had run into someone tape meant for him.
“Why are we partners?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. Then: “But electronics is useful. And you know a different Room. Come on. Tell me what you know.”
“You go in,” he said, trying to pull up everything, fast and all of it, the way he would do for a Super. “There’s a door. There can be all kinds of traps. If you make one go off you lose. Sometimes there’s noise. Sometimes the lights go out. Sometimes there’s someone after you and you have to get through and rig traps. Sometimes there’s an AI lock. Sometimes there’s water and that’s real dangerous if there’s a line loose. But it’s pretend, you don’t really get electrocuted.”
“Dead is dead,” she said. “They shoot at you and they trap the doors and if you don’t blow them up they’ll blow you up; and sometimes all the things you said. Sometimes gas. Sometimes Ambushes. Sometimes it’s outside and sometimes it’s a building. Some people get killed for real. I saw one. He broke his neck.”
He was shocked. And then he thought it could be him. And he thought about door traps. He took a battery and a coil of wire and a penlight, and Catlin gave him a black scarf—for your face, she said. She took a lot of other things, like face-black and cord and some things that might be weapons, but he didn’t know.
“If they have gas masks in Staging it’s a good idea to have one,” Catlin said, “but there aren’t. So they probably won’t do gas, but you don’t know. They aren’t fair.”
A bell rang.
Time was up.
“Come on,” Catlin said, and the door opened and let them out with what they had.
Down a hall and through more doors. And upstairs again, until they came out in another concrete hall.
With a lot of doors.
“We’re looking for 22,” Catlin said.
That was two more. Catlin opened the door and let them into a plain little room with a double bunk.
“Top or bottom?” Catlin asked.
“I don’t care,” he said. He had never thought about a room all his own. Or even half his. There was a table and two chairs. There was a door.
“Where does that go?”
“Bathroom,” Catlin said. “We share with the room next door. They’re Olders. You knock before you go in. That’s their Rule. If they’re Olders you take their Rules.”
“I’m lost,” he said.
“That’s all right,” Catlin said, emptying her pockets onto the table. “I’ve been here five days. I know a lot of the Rules. The Olders are pretty patient. They tell you. But you better remember or they’ll tell the Instructor and you’re in trouble.”
“I’ll remember.” He looked at her emptying her pockets and thought how his stuff was right where he wanted it. “Do we have to change clothes for the Room?”
“In the morning, always.”
He emptied his pockets, but he put everything together the way he wanted it. Catlin looked at what he was doing.
“That’s smart,” she said. “You always know where all that stuff is.”
He looked at her. She was serious. “Of course,” he said.
“You’re all right,” she said.
“I think you must be pretty good,” he said.
“They don’t Get me often,” she said. And pulled back the chair and sat down with her arms on the table while he was emptying his pockets. “Do they you?”
“No,” he said.
She looked quite happy in her sober way. And picked up the gun and flipped up the panel on the grip and snapped it shut again. “The gun’s real,” she said. “But the charges aren’t. You still have to check, though. Rounds can get mixed up. Once somebody’s did. You always think about that. The Enemy could have mixed-up rounds. And blow you to bits. The practice rounds have a big black band. The real ones don’t. But these can still kill you if you get hit close up. You have to be careful
when you’re working partners. More people get killed with practice rounds than anything else in training.”
Catlin knew more stories about how people got killed than he had ever heard in his life. He felt his stomach upset.
But Catlin wanted to know all about the traps, all about the things he had seen. She was full of questions and with everything he said he saw her strange eyes concentrate in the way people would if they were smart and they were going to remember. So he asked about Ambushes, and she told him a lot of things she had seen.
She was smart, he thought. She sounded like she could do the things she said. He had never planned to be in Security. He had never planned to have a girl for a partner and he never imagined anyone like Catlin. She did sort of smile. It lit up her eyes, but her mouth hardly moved. She made him so nervous he was gladder when she did that than when most people smiled wide open. A smile out of Catlin was hard to get. You had to really tell her something that impressed her. And when you got one you wanted another one because in between there was just nothing.
They went to mess, which was what they called the dining hall here. They all had to stand and wait till they could sit, and they were years younger than anyone. Most were boys, very tall, a few were girls, all of them were in their teens and everybody was on strict manners. He would have been terribly nervous if Catlin had not known when to stand and when to sit and tugged at his sleeve to cue him. But it was very good food, and as much as you wanted, and when the near-grown boys around them talked they were polite and didn’t act annoyed that they were there. Who’s your partner? one asked Catlin, and she said: Florian AF, ser. Like talking to a Super.
Welcome in, that boy said. And they made him stand up so people could see him. He was nervous. But the boy stood up beside him and introduced him as Florian AF, Catlin’s partner, a tech. He wasn’t sure he was, but it was something like; and they all looked at him a moment, then they gave a land of Welcome In and he could sit down. It was not too different from a dorm, except there they never made you stand up at table, because your dining hall was a whole lot of dorms. Green Barracks had its own kitchen, and there were seconds and thirds if you wanted them, you didn’t have to have a med’s order.
The Instructor said they had two hours for Rec then and then they had to have lights out by 2300.
But Catlin thought they ought to go back to their quarters—that was what they called it in Green Barracks—and figure out about the Room, because the Instructor said they could do that; and they asked each other questions about the Room until just before their lights-out.
He was anxious about undressing. He had never undressed around girls, just the meds and the techs, and they had always been careful to give him something to put on and to turn their backs or leave the room till he had. Catlin said it was all right if they were roommates, everybody else did; so she took off her shirt and pants, he took off his, and she went to take a shower first. She came back in her clean underwear and threw the duty clothes in the hamper.
She was like he thought she would be under her clothes, all bones and skinny muscle that would have made him think they didn’t feed you much in Security, except he had just had one of their meals. She was shaped different, all right, thinner around the chest—her ribs showed—and flat where boys weren’t. He had never seen a girl in her underwear. It was thin and didn’t hide much, and he tried not to stare or to think about her staring at him. He wasn’t sure why it was bad, it still didn’t feel right. But that was the way it had to be, because sleeping in their clothes would make them a mess.
So they had to be polite with each other and get along with the situation.
He took his shower fast, like Catlin said, because the Olders would want it soon; and he put on his clean underwear and came and got in the bottom bunk, because Catlin had the top. He got in fast, because she was under her covers and he was out there all alone in his underwear.
“Last one,” Catlin said from up above, “has to turn the lights out. It’s my Rule. All right?”
He looked for the switch from where he was lying. He had never been in a place where the lights didn’t just go out at the right time. He had never slept anywhere but a barracks with fifty or so boys in the same room. He slithered out of the covers again and dived over and hit the switch and dived back again, remembering the straight line to the bunk, so hard it made the bed shake.
He realized he had shaken up Catlin too. “Sorry,” he said, and tried to be quieter getting under the covers again. He was very conscious he was with a stranger, who might be a seven, but they were different from each other, she was Security and Security was very stiff and cold. He didn’t want to do wrong or make her annoyed with him. He lay there in the dark in a place with only one person in it, worse than being in a new dorm, very much worse. He felt cold and it was only partly because the sheets were. All the sounds were gone, except one of the Olders starting up the shower.
He wondered where Catlin had lived before this. She didn’t seem nervous. Somebody had told her everything that would happen. Or she was just able to do everything. Having a boy for a partner didn’t bother her. She was glad about him being good at traps. He hoped he was as good as she expected. He would be terribly embarrassed if he got them Blown Up in the first doorway.
And he was terribly afraid he was going to have to do Traps in the dark, which was the hardest, and that meant he was going to need the penlight. Catlin said he could hide that with his coat, they usually let you have one. Because working against the light he was a target for sure.
Don’t make noise, she had said. I’ll watch your back; you just work; but noise is going to help the Enemy. We can try to Get one that way, but that depends on how much time we have. Or whether it’s a speed run or a kill run. They’ll tell us that.
What’s a kill run? he had asked.
Where you get most of your points for Getting the Enemy.
Like where you have to set the Traps, he had said, relieved he understood. Sometimes we do it both ways—you have to take one apart and leave one for the Enemy following you. You get extra points if he misses it. Sometimes they make you go back through right away, and you don’t know whether it’s your Trap or his or whether he got stopped. The blow-ups show, but you can’t trust those either, because he could touch it off and set another one.
That’s sneaky, she had said, her eyes lighting the way they could. That’s good.
He wanted to go blank so that he could go to sleep: there was a Room to do in the morning; and he knew he had to rest, but that was hard to do, his mind was so full of things without answers.
The Room did not make him half so anxious as this place did.
Why are they doing this? he wondered. And thinking of the gun on the table and about the too-quiet mess hall and all of Catlin’s stories about people shooting each other in the Game: Are they sure I belong here?
It’s not a Game, Catlin had said sternly when he had called it that. A game is what you do on the computers in Rec. This is real, and they cheat.
He really wanted to go back to AG. He wanted to see the Horse. He wanted to feed the baby in the morning.
But you had to survive the Room to do that for just four hours.
From now on.
He really tried to go blank. He tried hard.
Why don’t they give me tape? Why don’t they make it so I know what to do?
Why don’t they make it so I feel better about this?
Has the Computer forgotten about me?
x
Ari thought every night how her letter was on its way now and she figured out where it had to be if it took so many months. Maman and Ollie would be at Fargone now. She felt a lot better to know where they were. She looked at pictures of Fargone and she could imagine them being there. Uncle Denys brought her a publicity booklet for RESEUNESPACE that had maman’s name in it. And pictures of where maman would be working. She kept it in her desk drawer and she liked to look at it and imagine herself going there. She wrote ano
ther letter every few days, and she told maman how she was doing. Uncle Denys said he would have to save up a packet of her letters and send them in a bundle because it was awfully expensive and maman wouldn’t care if she got them all at once, all in one envelope. She wanted to address it to maman and Ollie, but uncle Denys said that would confuse the postal people, and if she was going to write to Ollie, maman would give it to him: the law said an azi couldn’t receive any mail except through his Supervisor, which was silly for Ollie, nothing could upset him; but it was the law.
So the address had to be:
Dr. Jane Strassen
Director
RESEUNESPACE
Fargone Station
And her return address was:
Dr. Denys Nye
Administrator
Reseune Administrative Territory
Postal District 3
Cyteen Station
She wanted to put her own name on the letter, but uncle Denys said she would have to wait until she was grown up and had her own address. Besides, he said, if it was from the Administrator of Reseune to the Director of RESEUNESPACE it looked like business and it would get right to maman’s desk without anybody waiting.
She was in favor of that.
She asked why their address was Cyteen Station when they lived on Cyteen, and he said mail didn’t go to planets without going through stations; and if you wanted to write to somebody on Earth the address was always Sol Station, but because there was Mars and the Moon you had to put Earth, then the name of the country.
Uncle Denys tried to explain what a country was and how they started. That was why he got her the History of Earth tape. She wanted to do that one again. It had a lot of really strange pictures. Some were scary. But she knew it was just tape.
She went to tapestudy. She studied biology and botany, and penmanship and history and civics this week. She got Excellent on her exams and uncle Denys gave her a nice holo that was a Terran bird. You turned it and the bird flapped his wings and flew. It came all the way from Earth. Uncle Giraud had got it in Novgorod.
But there was only Nelly for playschool. And it was boring doing the swings and the puzzlebars with just Nelly. So she didn’t go every day anymore. She got tired of going everywhere with Nelly, because Nelly worried about everything and Nelly was always worrying about her. So she told uncle Denys she could go to tapestudy by herself, and she could go to library by herself, because people knew her, and she was all right.