"What you see around you is nature as your ancestors once lived it," continued the proctor. "Your ancestors did not have access to the Data Sea. They could not activate bio/logic programs to keep themselves warm in the winter, or fetch ten different weather forecasts with a thought. They did not have OCHRE machines working inside their bodies to shield them from injury and disease. Your ancestors learned to live this way during a hundred thousand years of trial and error.
"But when humanity decided to ignore its heritage-to place its trust in living machines instead of in themselves-the race nearly perished. And because humanity had forgotten the lessons of its ancestors, billions more were doomed to starve in the horrible decades that followed.
"We must never forget our heritage again.
"And so, during the next year, you will become acquainted with nature in a way you never have before. You will experience pain and frustration and injury. The things you see as entitlements will become hard-earned luxuries. Because of this, some of you will decide that nature is your enemy. Others will see nature as an impersonal and uncaring force.
"But if you lose hope, remember this: Our bodies were built to sur vive the harshest punishments nature can give. Over a hundred thousand years, we conquered nature. So will you again.
"You have many advantages over your ancestors. You have generations of genetic engineering that has broadened your minds and strengthened your bodies. You have all the accumulated knowledge fifteen years of hive education has given you. You have your comrades. And when all else fails, you have the certainty that a hoverbird pilot will be back on this very spot in twelve months to take you back to civilization.
"So when someone asks why your parents sent you to initiation, why you spent a year of your life out in the woods instead of practicing your bio/logic programming skills, you tell them this: I came to initiation to fulfill my responsibility to humanity. I came here to ensure the continuation of the human race.
"The Proud Eagle wishes to thank you for your many years with us. When you emerge from this last test, you will no longer be hive boys. You will be young men.
"As Sheldon Surina liked to say, May you always move towards perfection. "
The proctor gave a polite bow to the assembled boys, who were too overwhelmed to do anything but respond in kind. Then he tramped onboard his vehicle and gave a nod to the hoverbird pilot. Within minutes, the ship was noiselessly whizzing southwards, back towards Cape Town.
Sixty-four boys stood at the top of the hill, looking sheepishly at one another and the encampment below. Then, moving as one, they began the hike towards their home for the next twelve months.
The accommodations were not as primitive as everyone had expected. Four rows of wood cabins lined four dusty streets, watched over by a large metal sign labeled CAMP 11. Of course, these houses didn't behave like the ones they were used to-they couldn't prepare food or obey mental commands or compress themselves to save space-but they were a far cry from the hovels the boys had feared.
The initiates split off into groups of four and chose cabins. Brone and Natch drifted to opposite corners of the camp like enemy kings of chess. Horvil stayed by Natch.
The proctors had provided plenty of clothing, reasonably comfortable beds, and even a rudimentary form of indoor plumbing. Few of the boys had ever seen a real toilet before, and they spent hours flushing them in a symphony of adolescent glee. A scouting party quickly discovered large and well-tended gardens on the east side of the camp, with enough food for all. There were storage rooms stocked with old-fashioned pens and stacks of treepaper, gardening tools, parkas, and pocket knives. It seemed like the only hardship the boys would face out here was boredom.
For the first few weeks, it was all a wonderful adventure. The microscopic OCHREs clinging to their insides stopped working. Hair and pimples sprouted without provocation. Digestive systems resumed their ancient dance with food as if the past two hundred years of gastric engineering had never happened. The boys learned how to clean themselves in the nearby stream, how to groom themselves with knives and scissors, how to use spades to dig tubers from the rock-hard ground.
Everyone experienced at least one morning of disorientation when he groggily tried to summon the morning news or his favorite channel off the Jamm. But all in all, the boys did not have enough time to miss the civilized world. Their days were filled with chores that needed to be done by hand, without the aid of bio/logics or modern machinery. Often, they found themselves without the necessary tools to accomplish a task and had to improvise. All of this took time, and it was not unusual for a boy to look up from the field he had started weeding that morning, only to discover a setting sun.
"It's amazing that our ancestors got anything done," Horvil groused to Natch one night. They both lay prostrate on their beds, sweaty and exhausted from a day fending off gophers in the fields. "After gardening, bathing, grooming, shitting and cleaning, I'm too tired to do anything else."
The pressure on the boys was most intense during the first month; they knew that any missteps now would have drastic repercussions come wintertime. The Twin Cities soil was hard and unforgiving, but the hive had provided efficient tools for prying into its skin and tending the perennial crops. Even more useful were the gardening manuals the proctors had left behind. The tips on plowing and crop rotation were nice, but the comments previous initiates had scribbled in the margins proved invaluable. Over the years, tenants of CAMP 11 had covered every blank centimeter of treepaper with hints about the best places to forage for wild game, what to do in case of rain, dirty stories, impenetrable in-jokes, and gossip many years gone stale. One book had a list on the inside cover titled
Another contained a treatise on
to which some anonymous wag had added
During the first few weeks, cooperation ran high among the boys. Even the most odious task was a novelty, and everyone was eager to take his turn pulling weeds and washing clothes. Many of the boys eyed Natch and Brone warily and took bets as to when the fighting would break out between them. But the two retreated to their wary fencers' dance, keeping their distance, looking out for sudden movements.
Spring passed into summer without incident. The boys spent their leisure time improvising rustic versions of soccer and baseball and trying to guess how their favorite teams were performing right now in the civilized world. Horvil slimmed down and lost his irrational fear of the outdoors.
Natch began to take long walks in the woods by himself. He grew fond of the trees, especially the tall ones that stretched up to the edge of his vision. While he walked, Natch mentally played back the conversations with Serr Vigal and Figaro Fi, dissecting them like an occultist looking for clues to the future.
Brone is a vicious person headed for a vacuous career, Vigal had said. But you, Natch, you're better than that. You are not ready to run your own company. If you jump into the fiefcorp world too quickly, you will regret it.
Where is your direction? Figaro Fi had asked him. You have endless wants. But want without purpose destroys a person. Those who can't master their wants are loose cannons.
It was all a matter of direction, wasn't it? Natch spent days looking around the spare plains for hints. Which direction should he choose? And how would he know when he arrived at the right one? As far as he could see, the four points on the compass were featureless and drab. It seemed like he could wander the entire earth following one of those paths and not see a single distinguishing characteristic.