Four prosperous-looking individuals — three men and a woman — had already emerged from the Market’s throng and come over to the booth. They were studying both the Human Beings curiously but seemed particularly interested in Farr. Dura said to Toba, “I doubt it’s going to make much practical difference. Is it?”
“It’s all the difference in the world. You sign up for a fixed-term contract… Your liberty remains your own. And at the end of it…”
“Excuse me.” The woman buyer had interrupted Toba. “I want to take a look at the boy.”
Toba smiled back. “Farr. Come on out. Don’t be afraid.”
Farr turned to Dura, his mouth open. She closed her eyes, suddenly ashamed that she could do so little to protect her brother from this. “Go on, Farr. They won’t hurt you.”
Farr slid through the wooden bars and out of the booth.
The woman was about Dura’s age but a good deal plumper; her hair-tubes were elaborately knotted into a gold-and-white bun, and layers of fat showed over her cheekbones. With the air of a professional she peered into the boy’s eyecups, ears and nostrils; she bade him open his mouth and ran a finger around his gums, inspecting the scrapings she extracted. Then she poked at Farr’s armpits, anus and penis-cache.
Dura turned away from her brother’s misery.
The woman said to Toba, “He’s healthy enough, if underfed. But he doesn’t look too strong.”
Toba frowned. “You’re considering him for Fishing?”
“Yes… He’s obviously slim and light. But…”
“Madam, he’s an upfluxer,” Toba said complacently.
“Really?” The woman stared at Farr with new curiosity. She actually pulled away from him a little, wiping her hands on her garment.
“And that means, of course, for his size and mass he’s immensely strong, here at the Pole. Ideal for the Bells.” Toba turned to Dura, and his voice was smooth and practiced. “You see, Dura, the material of our bodies is changed, here at the Pole, because the Magfield is stronger.” He seemed to be talking for the sake of it — to be filling in the silence while the woman pondered Farr’s destiny. “The bonds between nuclei are made stronger. That’s why it feels hotter here to you, and why your muscles are…”
“I’m sure you’re right,” the woman cut in. “But…” She hesitated. “Is he…”
“Broken in?” Dura interrupted heavily.
“Dura,” Toba warned her.
“Lady, he is a Human Being, not a wild boar. And he can speak for himself.”
Toba said rapidly, “Madam, I can vouch for the boy’s good nature. He’s been living in my home. Eating with my family. And besides, he represents good value at…” — his face puffed out, and he seemed to be calculating rapidly — “at fifty skins.”
The woman frowned, but her fat, broad face showed interest. “For what? The standard ten years?”
“With the usual penalty clauses, of course,” Toba said.
The woman hesitated.
A crowd was gathering around the Market’s central Wheel. The noise level was rising and there was an air of excitement… of dangerous excitement, Dura felt; suddenly she wished the booth formed a more substantial cage around her.
“Look, I don’t have time to haggle; I want to watch the execution. Forty-five, and I’ll take his option.”
“Toba hesitated for barely a moment. “Done.”
The woman melted into the crowd, with a final intrigued glance at Farr.
Dura reached out of the booth-cage and touched Toba’s arm. “Ten years?”
“That’s the standard condition.”
“And the work?”
Toba looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard. I’ll not try to hide that. They’ll put him in the Bells… But he’s strong, and he’ll survive it.”
“And after he’s too weak to work?”
He pursed his lips. “He won’t be in the Bells forever. He could become a Supervisor, maybe; or some kind of specialist. Look, Dura, I know this must seem strange to you, but this is our way, here in Parz. It’s a system that’s endured for generations… And it’s a system you accepted, implicitly, when you agreed to come here in the car, to find a way to pay for Adda’s treatment. I did try to warn you.” His round, dull face became defiant. “You understood that, didn’t you?”
She sighed. “Yes. Of course I did. Not in every detail, but… I couldn’t see any choice.”
“No,” he said, his voice hard. “Well, you don’t have any choice, now.”
She hesitated before going on. She hated to beg. But at least Toba and his home were fixed points in this new world, nodes of comparative familiarity. “Toba Mixxax. Couldn’t you buy us… our labor? You have a ceiling-farm at the Crust. And…”
“No,” he said sharply. Then, more sympathetically, he went on, “I’m sorry, Dura, but I’m not a prosperous man. I simply couldn’t afford you… Or rather, I couldn’t afford a fair price for you. You wouldn’t be able to pay off Adda’s bills. Do you understand? Listen, forty-five skins for ten prime years of Farr, unskilled as he is, may seem a fortune to you; but believe me, that woman got a bargain, and she knew it. And…”
His voice was drowned by a sudden roar from the crowd around the huge Wheel. People jostled and barged each other as they swarmed along guide ropes and rails. Dura — listless, barely interested — looked through the crowd, seeking the focus of excitement.
A man was being hauled through the crowd. His two escorts, Waving strongly, were dressed in a uniform similar to the guards at Muub’s Hospital, with their faces made supernaturally menacing by heavy leather masks. Their captive was a good ten years older than Dura, with a thick mane of yellowing hair and a gaunt, patient face. He was stripped to the waist and seemed to have his hands tied behind his back.
The crowds flinched as he passed, even as they roared encouragement to his captors.
Dura rubbed her nose, depressed and confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How are forty-five skins a fortune? Skins of what?”
He had to shout to make himself heard. “It means, ah, forty-five Air-pig skins.”
That seemed clearer. “So you’re saying Farr’s labor is worth as much as forty-five Air-pigs?”
“No, of course not.”
A new buyer came by the booth, a man who briefly asked about Farr. Toba had to turn him away but indicated Dura was available. The buyer — a coarse, heavy-set man dressed in a close-clinging robe — glanced over Dura cursorily before moving on.
Dura shuddered. There had been nothing threatening in the man’s appraisal, still less anything sexual. In fact — and this was the ghastly, dispiriting part of it — there had been nothing personal in it at all. He had looked at her — her, Dura, daughter of Logue and leader of the Human Beings — the way she might weigh up a spear or knife, a carved piece of wood.
As a tool, not a person.
Toba was still trying to explain skins to her. “You see, we’re not talking about real pigs.” He smiled, patronizing. “That would be absurd. Can you imagine people carting around fifty, a hundred Air-pigs, to barter with each other? It’s all based on credit, you see. A skin is equivalent to the value of one pig. So you can exchange skins — or rather, amounts of credit in skins — and it’s equivalent to bartering in pigs.” He nodded brightly at her. “Do you see?”
“So if I had a credit of one skin — I could exchange it for one pig.”
He opened his mouth to agree, and then his face fell. “Ah — not quite. Actually, a pig — a healthy, fertile adult — would cost you about four and a half skins at today’s prices. But the cost of an actual pig is irrelevant… That isn’t the point at all. Can’t you see that? It’s all to do with inflation. The Air-pig is the base of the currency, but…”