17.1. Forty-Sixty Calder Farris
Pol got into the office early again, but again, Gyde was there. He was always there; his face was always there when you turned around. But that face was so guileless that surely it was paranoia to think this was anything but the light-footedness of an old warrior.
This morning Gyde was absorbed in a thick case file when Pol entered the room. He put it in his desk drawer—not hastily but immediately. Pol stood at the coatrack, taking his time, hearing Gyde lock the drawer. It could be anything, that file, personnel records on some monitor that had caught Gyde’s eye, anything at all.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Gyde said pleasantly. “We have a lead—a citizen’s report. Some Bronze thinks his neighbor might be the terrorist.”
“You want to go now?”
“You have a better idea, classmate?”
On the thirty-minute drive to the Bronze 2 suburb, Pol asked, “What did the report say? Does this neighbor have an ax to grind?”
That glint of steel sparkled in Gyde’s eyes. Only Gyde could look pleased with himself and deadly at the same time. “The report mentioned illegal books. I’ve been thinking—these lunatic ideas our friend writes about had to come from somewhere, and it wasn’t from The Lives of Our Noble Forefathers.”
Pol nodded. That was smart. “Does this suspect work in construction?”
“No. He’s an entry-level clerk for the Department of Transportation.”
Pol didn’t think that sounded promising. He didn’t voice this opinion.
“Can I ask you something?” Gyde said, glancing at him as he drove.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been acting a little strange about this case. Not interested?”
Pol smiled coldly. “I am interested. I’m very interested.”
“Good. You should be. You’ve got to want merits more than you let on.”
Pol looked out the window. If an air-raid siren went off—as they had a tendency to do two or three times a day—he and Gyde would have to abandon the car and find shelter. Pol always thought about that when they had to drive across town, checking the buildings as they went past for structural soundness as though evaluating life insurance policies.
“You haven’t mated yet,” Gyde said. “After this case you’ll have enough merits to qualify. You have to be excited about that.”
Pol turned his blue-white eyes to Gyde. It seemed like every day something came out of Gyde’s mouth that Pol had never told him. How did he know Pol 137 had never mated?
“Have you ever mated?” Pol asked, turning the conversation around.
Gyde hesitated, an odd look on his face. “I have a son.”
“A son?”
“They tell you after the birth—if it’s healthy or not, if it’s been accepted into the class, and its sex. My son is a Silver.”
“Congratulations.”
Gyde’s lined face shone with pleasure. “It’s a great thing to do for the state. You’d be proud if it happened to you.”
Pol shrugged. He couldn’t see what difference it made, knowing that you had a child out there.
“And mating a Silver female,” Gyde said in a low rumble. “It’s nothing like the Iron whores at the rec hall. Nothing at all.”
Silver females were beautiful, it was true. They were plastered on billboards all over the city, just like the males. In their tight battle uniforms they were perfection: cool, marble white, strong, athletic, remote—unobtainable. Pol had learned from the gossip among Marcus’s slaves that Silver females were notorious lesbians. The state did not allow them male lovers, not until they were assigned to mate, not even the male equivalents of the sterilized Iron whores the male Silvers were granted.
Pol had no interest in the Iron whores. He had no interest in female Silvers, for that matter. He had bigger problems.
Gyde let out a long sigh. “The Silver I had… she was like milk. Like a river of warm milk.”
“What happened to her?”
“After the mating I heard she was transferred to the Gefferdon Zone.”
For a moment neither commented.
“I saw my son once,” Gyde said quietly.
“I thought that wasn’t allowed.”
Gyde glanced in the rearview mirror, as if to confirm no one was there. “I saw him on the parade grounds three years ago. I knew he’d be about fifteen and I just happened to pass this class of fifteen-year-olds. There was one boy, I swear to the gods he looked exactly like me except for his hair—that was his mother’s.”
There was an uncharacteristic tension in his voice. Pol turned his face to the window and smiled. It pleased him, seeing a crack in the tough old grindstone. It made him feel more secure somehow. He tried to think of a way to continue it.
“What about you?” he asked. “You’ve already mated. You’re in the highest Silver class, and you’re close to retirement. Why are you still chasing merits?”
In the distance, air-raid sirens went off. They both fell silent, peering out the window as Gyde let the car roll to a stop. But the tall speakers on either side of the street remained silent. The bombers were not coming this way. Gyde accelerated.
“Have you ever seen the retirement communities for Silvers?” Gyde asked lightly.
Pol hesitated. What was the right answer here? “No.”
“Me, neither. In fact, I don’t know anyone who has.”
“They’re down by the Southlands, aren’t they?”
“Supposed to be.” Gyde looked intently at the road for a moment, both hands on the wheel, as if challenged by conditions. But the traffic was light, the roads clear of ice. “I thought I would have heard more about it, since it’s only six months away for me. But I haven’t.”
“You probably will.”
“Yes. I probably will.”
For once, Pol knew what to expect. The Bronze 2 suburb was not unlike the one Marcus had lived in, except that he’d had more servants than any of these people would ever have. Marcus had made a lot of money on the black market, but that didn’t change his rank, didn’t earn him permission to live in bigger or better housing, so his place had been crammed with things and slaves.
The homes were small units, single-bedroom many of them, each abutting onto the next. The front lawns, sporting raggedy snow, were no more than eight feet square. In the streets a few Bronze children played. Unlike the Silvers, Bronzies were allowed to marry. There was some genetic preapproval, but nothing like the scrutiny that went on while mating the upper classes. Once married, a Bronze still had to get a permit for breeding, and generally they received only one such permit in a lifetime.
The children in the street were unremarkable—flat, ruddy faces, black hair. They stopped playing ball to watch the car drive past. There were whispers as they tried to peer inside. Pol could see the words on their lips. Silvers! Eager. Then, frightened: Monitors!
Within seconds, the children had disappeared.
Pol and Gyde found the address. According to their suspect’s file he lived alone and should be at work this time of day. No one answered their knock. They let themselves in with their monitor keys.
Inside, they split up. Pol searched the kitchen while Gyde moved off down the hall. Within minutes Gyde called his name. Pol found him in a small bedroom. Gyde had turned over a narrow mattress and was peering down at a hidden stash with disgust, as though looking at a nest of spiders.
“Illegal books,” he said, poking at them. “Secrets of the State, The Truth about the Races, Questioning Family Law… This Bronze slag is done for.”