“Do you do that a lot?” I asked, rubbing my temples. The lime was beginning to get its own back, as small bursts of pink had started to appear on the periphery of my vision.
He gave an imperceptible shrug. “Now and again. Good residency is about having the power to ask someone to do something, but not necessarily exercising it. Impoliteness is the Mildew of mankind, Eddie.”
It was one of Munsell’s truisms, and unlike most of Munsell’s truisms, actually true.
We stopped at Persimmon-on-River, where the Oranges alighted, a couple of Blues got on and a piano was delicately manhandled from one of the boxcars while freight was checked and loaded. We steamed out of there and ten minutes later passed Three Combs Junction, where we clattered over some points, banked to the right and then rumbled across a wooden trestle bridge to steam up a broad treeless valley. Scattered herds of ground sloths, giraffes, kudus and bouncing goats were grazing but paid us little attention. The line shifted direction to the north and plunged into a steep valley of almost indescribable loveliness. The track ran alongside a cascading, rock-strewn river, and steep hills laced with oak and silver birch rose on either side, with kites wheeling over the limestone crags high above. I stared out the window, my eyes searching for red as a ratfink stalks a squarriel. It was midsummer; we were past the welcome cascade of early orchids, and it was now the time of the poppies, sorrel and pink campions. Once they were done, the snapdragons and maiden pinks would sustain us until the end of the season, and it was in this manner that we Reds leapfrogged through the spring and summer on a frugal diet of seasonal blooms. Mind you, the cooler weather at year’s end didn’t completely dull our senses. Although better suited to Orange and Yellow eyes than ours, autumn was quite often a rapturous explosion of delights, if the leaves lingered on the branches long enough to be reddened by a fortuitous warm spell. It was the same story for the other colors, to a greater or lesser degree. The Yellows had more seasonal bloom, Blues and Oranges had less. Greens, as they constantly reminded us, had only two Chromatic seasons: the abundant muted and the abundant vibrant. Growing bored, I turned my attention to Dad’s copy of Spectrum.
The magazine contained pretty much the same articles that it always did. There was an editorial extolling the functional simplicity of the color-based economy, and then, on pages two and three, graphically illustrated accounts of recent swan attacks and lightning deaths. Following this were some “Top Tips” on what you could do to increase your survival chances if caught out after dark, and the weekly Very Racy Story. There were stoppage listings on the rail network and the Science Wild Conjecture page, which this week had an article that linked sun-spot activity to the increased fade-rate. There were amusing anecdotes sent in by readers, a comic strip, Gus Honeybun’s Birthdays, a preview of what to expect this year at Jollity Fair and the likely contenders for the Fourth Great Leap Backward in three years’ time. But the first thing I read was always Spouse Mart—not because I was looking for a partner away from home, but because it gave a rough scale of prices in the the complex issue of the Chromatic marriage market, a subject pertinent to me, as Dad would have to cough up a fair bit of cash to see me married into the Oxbloods.
There were two types of ads. Some were from parents eager to offer a shedload of merits to marry off their children up-color, such as this one:
21-yr female (R: 32.2%, Y: 12%), strong virtues. Handsome and helpful, with impressive feedback rating. Seeks Chromogentsia-plus family. Brings 4,125 merits and 47 sheep. Delivery negotiable, option to refuse retained. Viewing at Ochre-in-the-Vale, PO6 5AD.
On the other side of the coin were parents willing to trade down-Spectrum in order to receive a shedload of merits, like this dodgy chap: Yellow Beta male (Y: 54.9%, R: 22%), 26 yrs. Feedback generally positive, healthy but not great looker. Mildly slovenly. List of virtues on application. Seeking 8,000 merits or nearest offer. Any family considered. Furniture included. Partial refund if infertile. Viewing at Great Celandine, CA4 6HA. Coincidentally, I even found one from East Carmine, where we were now headed: 18-yr female with strong Purpleness, 75 genuine virtues, hardworking and eager to please, Egg chit and excellent feedback. Offers invited above 6,000. Available soon. Option to refuse waived. Husband collects. Viewing strongly advised. East Carmine LD3 6KC.
The ad was steeped in code, as the Rules were quite strict as to what could and could not be said. “Available soon” meant she was not yet tested for her perception, but “strong Purpleness” meant she was expected to hit the 50 percent mark, which made the six thousand asking price about right, since she already had an egg chit. Reading between the lines, it looked as though her parents were hoping for a wealthy Purple family who had recently lost hue but retained hopes of dynastic recovery, and wanted someone who could child pretty soon. The amount of virtues listed meant little, but the “Option to refuse waived” spoke volumes: Whichever Purple came along with the largest wad won the young lady. Either she was very compliant, or her parents were tyrants. Most parents these days at least consulted with their children before negotiating dowries on their behalf, and some forward-thinking parents even allowed them a veto.
As we emerged from the valley, a recently abandoned town appeared on our left, just on the other side of the river. I caught the name of the station as we clanked past without stopping: Rusty Hill . The platform was liberally sprinkled with animal droppings and windblown soil. Grass and weeds grew in happy profusion from the paving-slab cracks, but nothing had been touched since abandonment. Cups and plates still sat on the station canteen’s tables, and in the waiting room I could even see a pile of leather suitcases slowly turning to blackened mulch beneath a leaking roof. I looked across at the town, and noted a few missing slates and broken windows. It looked as though it had been lived in as little as five years ago.
We moved through Rusty Hill’s abandoned farmland, past a Faraday cage or two and fields that were now covered in tall grasses, low shrubs, brambles and saplings. Wildstock had broken in long ago, and the stone walls had been breached by wandering megafauna. Even the iron-framed glasshouse was slowly succumbing to a dual assault of external weather and rampant growth within—the branch of an unpruned apple had pushed out several panes of glass. Without intervention in the next twenty years, the village would be irrecoverable. We left Rusty Hill’s boundary by way of an unattended railgate, and then skirted along one side of a broad valley that was an empty wilderness punctuated by mature woodland and the troublesome rhododendron, which was growing out here in even greater quantities. I noted a few subtle markers of the Previous as we rolled past: a long stretch of perfectly smooth roadway; a few dilapidated buildings that had somehow resisted collapse; the remains of a steel bridge, now marooned in empty grassland by a river that had long since meandered elsewhere; and most spectacularly, a cast-iron phone box eroded by wind and rain to the delicateness of filigree.
Twenty minutes later we entered another steep valley, crossed the river and passed through a V-shaped gap in the hills. Then, as the trees thinned and the smoke and steam momentarily cleared, I had my first glimpse of East Carmine: the twin redbrick chimneys of what I would later learn was the linoleum factory. The train passed through the Outer Markers, crossed the river, slowed for the stockwall railgate, then entered the neatly tilled land of the sub-Collective. East Carmine’s patch must have been perhaps thirty miles by ten at its widest part and occupied the middle section of a wide, fertile valley, with low hills to the east and mountains to the north and west. I could see now why there was a settlement here. It was quite lovely in a quaint, uncomplicated sort of way and, despite being on the weather side of the country, warmer and lusher than I had imagined. The railway station was a half mile or so from the village, which was fairly low-lying—except for the omnipresent flak tower, which, along with the Perpetulite roadways, was probably the most visible evidence of the Previous, and no less strange. Quite why anyone would build stark, windowless towers all over the country was never fully explained, nor was how they came by their name. But oddly, East Carmine’s flak tower seemed to have a nonstandard domed construction on top of it.