“Of course he can. But he can afford not to.” Ito shook her head at Dura’s confusion. “Oh, come on, it would take too long to explain.”
Dura sniffed. The sweet smell was even stronger now. “What is that?”
“Pig farts, of course. Perfumed, naturally…”
They dropped gently down the avenue, Waving easily. Dura found herself embarrassed by the awkward silences between herself and this kindly woman — but there was so little common ground between them.
“Why do you live in the City?” Dura asked. “I mean, when Toba’s farm is so far away…”
“Well, there’s my own job,” Ito said. “The farm is large, but it’s in a poor area. Right on the fringe of the hinterland, so far upflux that it’s hard even to get coolies to work out there, for fear of…” She stopped.
“For fear of upfluxers. It’s all right.”
“The farm doesn’t bring in as much as it should. And everything seems to cost so much…”
“But you could live in your farm.” The thought of that appealed to Dura. She liked the idea of being out in the open, away from this stuffy warren — and yet being surrounded by an area of cultivation, of order; to know that your area of control extended many hundreds of mansheights all around you.
“Perhaps,” Ito said reluctantly. “But who wants to be a subsistence farmer? And there’s Cris’s schooling to think of.”
“You could teach him yourself.”
Ito shook her head patiently. “No, dear, not as well as the professionals. And they are only to be found here, in the City.” Her tired, careworn look returned. “And I’m determined Cris is going to get the best schooling we can afford. And stick it to the end, despite his dreams of Surfing.”
Surfing?
Dura fell silent, trying to puzzle all this out.
Ito brightened. “Besides — with all respect to you and your people, dear — I wouldn’t want to live on some remote farm, when I could be surrounded by all this. The shops, the theaters, the libraries at the University…” She looked at Dura curiously. “I know this is all strange to you, but don’t you feel the buzz of life here? And if, one day, we could move a bit further Upside…”
“Upside?”
“Closer to the Palace.” Ito pointed upward, back the way they had come. “At the top of the City. All of this side of the City, above the Market, is Upside.”
“And below the Market…”
Ito blinked. “Why, that’s the Downside, of course. Where the Harbor is, and the dynamo sheds, and cargo ports, and sewage warrens.” She sniffed. “Nobody would live down there by choice.”
Dura Waved patiently along, the unfamiliar clothes scraping across her legs and back.
As they descended, the walls of Pall Mall curved away from her like an opening throat, and the avenue merged smoothly into the Market. This was a spherical chamber perhaps double the width of Pall Mall itself. The Market seemed to be the end-point of a dozen streets — not just the Mall — and traffic streams poured through it constantly. Cars and people swarmed over each other chaotically; in the dust and noise, Dura saw drivers lean out of their cars, bellowing obscure profanities at each other. There were shops here, but they were just small, brightly colored stalls strung in rows across the chamber. Stallkeepers hovered at all angles, brandishing their wares and shouting at passing customers.
At the center of the Market was a wheel of wood, about a mansheight across. It was mounted on a huge wooden spindle which crossed the chamber from side to side, cutting through the shambolic stalls; the spindle must have been hewn from a single Crust-tree, Dura thought, and she wondered how the carpenters had managed to bring it here, into the heart of the City. The wheel had five spokes, from which ropes dangled. The shape of the wheel looked vaguely familiar to Dura, and after a moment’s thought she recalled the odd little talisman which Toba wore around his neck, the man spreadeagled against a wheel. Wasn’t that five-spoked too?
Ito said, “Isn’t this great? These little stalls don’t look like much but you can get some real bargains. Good quality stuff, too…”
Dura found herself backing up, back toward the Mall they’d emerged from. Here, right in the belly of this huge City, the noise, heat and constant motion seemed to crowd around her, threatening to overwhelm her.
Ito followed her and took her hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s find somewhere quieter and have something to eat.”
Cris’s room was a mess. Crumpled clothes, all gaudily colored, floated through the Air like discarded skin; from among the clothes’ empty limbs, bottles of hair-dye protruded, glinting in the lamplight. Cris pushed his way confidently into this morass, shoving clothes out of the way. Farr didn’t find it so easy to enter the room. The cramped space, the clothes pawing softly at his flesh, gave him an intense feeling of claustrophobia.
Cris misread his discomfiture. “Sorry about the mess. My parents give me hell about it. But I just can’t seem to keep all this junk straight.” He tipped back in the Air and rammed at a mass of clothing with both feet; the clothing wadded into a ball and compressed into one corner, leaving the Air marginally clearer; but even as Farr watched the clothes slowly unraveled, reaching out blindly with empty sleeves.
Farr peered around, wondering what he was supposed to say. “Some of your belongings are — attractive.”
Cris gave him an odd look. “Attractive. Yeah. Well, not half as attractive as they could be if we had a little more money to spare. But times are hard. They’re always hard.” He dived into the bundles of clothing once more, pulling them apart with his hands, evidently searching for something. “I suppose money doesn’t mean a thing, where you grew up.”
“No,” Farr said, still unsure what money actually was. Oddly, he had heard envy in Cris’s voice.
Cris had retrieved something from within the cloud of clothing: a board, a thin sheet of wood about a mansheight long. Its edges were rounded and its surface, though scored by grooves for gripping, was finely finished and polished so well that Farr could see his reflection in it. A thin webbing of some shining material had been inlaid into the wood. Cris ran his hand lovingly over the board; it was as if, Farr thought, he were caressing the skin of a loved one. Cris said, “It sounds great.”
“What does?”
“Life in the upflux.” Cris looked at Farr uncertainly.
Again Farr didn’t know how to answer. He glanced around at Cris’s roomful of possessions — none of which he’d made himself, Farr was willing to bet — and let his look linger on Cris’s stocky, well-fed frame.
“I mean, you’re so free out there.” Cris ran his hand around the edge of his polished board. “Look, I finish my schooling in another year. And then what? My parents don’t have the money for more education — to send me to the University, or the Medical College, maybe. Anyway, I don’t have the brains for any of that.” He laughed, as if proud of the fact. “For someone like me there are only three choices here.” He counted them off on his callus-free fingers. “If you’re stupid, you end up in the Harbor, fishing up Corestuff from the underMantle — or maybe you can lumberjack, or you might end up in the sewage runs. Whatever. But if you’re a little smarter you might get into the Civil Service, somewhere. Or — if you can’t stand any of that, if you don’t want to work for the Committee — you can go your own way. Set up a stall in the Market. Or work a ceiling-farm, like my father, or build cars like my mother. And spend your life breaking your back with work, and paying over most of your money in tithes to the Committee.” He shrugged, clinging to his board; his voice was heavy with despondency, with world-weariness. “And that’s it. Not much of a choice, is it?”