“Equality is a proven myth,” I remarked, the well-worn arguments tripping off my tongue. “Do you favor a return to the ways of the Previous with their destructive myopia and Worship of the Me? Or simply a descent into the anarchic savagery of the Riffraff?”
“Despite what you read in Munsell, those aren’t the only choices. We deserve better that this. All of us.
We could run the village like we run the Greyzone. No spots, no rankings, just people. Why do I have to prove myself an upright member of society and deserving of full residency before being allowed to marry? Why do I have to apply for an egg chit? Why can’t I move to Cobalt if I wish? Why do I have to submit myself to any of the Rules?”
“Because Something Happened.”
“What?”
There was no clear or easy answer to this.
“Something . . . best forgotten. You may hate living under Munsell, but it has sustained for almost five centuries. Besides, your wholly demeritable thoughts and conduct place you firmly in the minority.”
She leaned closer.
“You say that, but am I really in the minority?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but couldn’t. Since visiting the library I had pondered upon the usually unassailable wisdom of the Leapbacks. What was in The Little Engine That Could that might cause a damaging rift in society? What was so wrong with the telephone that it had to be withdrawn? Why was Mr. Simply Red no longer listened to? Why no more crinkle-cut chips, bicycles, kites, zips, yo-yos, banjos and marzipan? But I had paused, and that was enough for her.
“I don’t need you to agree with me,” she said quietly. “I’ll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It’s an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion—and action.”
She stared at me for a moment.
“But that’s not really your thing, is it?”
And she left me alone in the kitchen with my thoughts. They were confused mostly, but I was at least glad my long-held doubts finally had a use—it made Jane happy.
The East Carmine Marriage Market
1.1.2.02.03.15: Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse.
I followed the rays of the setting sun out of the village along West Street, and sat on a bench to draft my telegram to Constance. Neither the nonadventure with the Last Rabbit nor the Oz Memorial nor the disgraced Yellow postman would actually impress, and mentioning Jane’s odd view of the Collective would be anathema. Constance had confided before I left that the things she looked for most in a husband were “incurious unambition” and “an ability to follow orders,” so I composed the telegram along the lines of how much I wanted to discharge my Civil Obligation to the Collective in the most productive manner, and how I thought of her all the time. I tried a poem: Oh, Constance Oxblood, my heart in full flood gushes, torrentlike, over rainburst stream and scrub.
When I was a kid, we used to play dusk running, where the last one back to the safety of the streetlight was the winner. It was usually either Richard or Lizzie, but one evening it was decided that a champion dusk runner must be established, so they both went and stood in the center of the playing field and waited for the night to roll in. The rest of us stood expectantly in the town square, exchanging wagers and giggling. The first to funk out was the loser, the last one back the winner. Lizzie was first in, but Richard wasn’t the winner. He was found eight months later a mile beyond the Outer Markers by Greys on coppicing duty. He was identified only by his spoon; his postcode was reallocated a day later. No one tried dusk running after that.
Within a few minutes the river, stockwall and linoleum factory had all vanished, swallowed up in the rolling wall of darkness that was sweeping across the land. I abandoned my seat when the shadows became empty holes in my vision and retreated to the safety of the town square. The streetlamp was now burning brightly, the low hiss of the arc and the occasional squeak and flicker working to dispel the fear of the night. Behind me, only the crackletrap atop the flak tower could still be seen, and that only as a silhouette against the rapidly darkening sky. “Hello!” said Tommo as he walked up. “I’ve been looking for you.” I returned his salutation and thanked him for fixing up the Rusty Hill gig. “Not a problem. Did you double-order the Lincoln for us, by the way?” “A bit of a snag, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Tommo, “or at least, not ofme. Courtland once beat Jim-Bob so hard he had blood in his wee.”
“I’ll get the Lincoln for you somehow.”
“I know you will. More important, are you going to marry my sister?” I would have to get used to how quickly Tommo could change the subject. “I didn’t even know youhad a sister.” “A state of affairs I am at efforts to maintain.” “You’ve lost me.”
“It’s pretty simple. You’re a Red of moderate perception and the son of a swatchman. The fine, upstanding Red womenfolk of this cesspool will be fighting over your plums like dogs about a freshly dead carcass.”
“Graphically put, if also a little disgusting. But I’m sorry, I’m on a half promise to an Oxblood.” Tommo raised his eyebrows. Not much impressed him, but this did. I explained about how my potential union to the Oxblood family would be my ticket to the easy life. We would be jointly running the family stringworks come Josiah Oxblood’s retirement, and it was well known that the Oxbloods were pretty much rolling in moolah.
“They have three permanent servants and a Leapback-compliant gyrocar,” I boasted, “and eat colorized food as a matter of course.”
“They’re also notoriously Redcentric,” he murmured.
This was true, too. Countless generations of Oxbloods had been choosing their mates wisely, and it was rumored that, paired with a suitably high-Redceptor husband, Constance might produce offspring who would surpass the Redness of the Crimsons, and topple them from the Red prefecture.
“Are you anywhere near the front of the queue,” asked Tommo, “or just a sad wannabe? Put it this way: Do you have pet names for each other?”
“We’ve shortlisted a few possibilities, but nothing’s fixed.”
Constance’s opinions on the matter, sadly, were entirely conservative. She had thought my suggestion of “snootchy bear” as an endearment a tad risque, was tempted with a more traditional “dear” or “honey” and had conceded to a tentative “honey bear” as a compromise, but only in private.