"Sost," he said, for the other had said this was the version he preferred to hear of a last name most people mispronounced - and he was not partial to Hans - "what happens from the time I report for job assignment to roll-call?"
This time he did see Sost grin.
"Going to ask some questions now?"
"From now on," said Hal.
Sost nodded.
''All right," he said. He drank from his coffee cup and set it down again. "You'll show up there tomorrow morning and everybody who can stand on their feet'll be out in front of the office. Agent'll call the roll, mark off anyone not there, and hand out assignments on the basis of the work orders he got since roll call the morning before. That's about it."
"Then what? What if I'm called for a work assignment?"
"Then you get travel papers with directions and travel passes credited against your new job; and you take off for whatever company needed you enough to hire you."
"And when I get there?"
"You'll be assigned to a team on one of the shifts - unless the team captain throws you back. If that happens, they'll bounce you around until they find a team that'll take you."
"What if no one wants me?"
"You?" Sost looked at him. "Not likely. But if they did the company'd give you a week's wages and dump you at the nearest Holding Area. You get to start all over again."
He got up to get himself another cup of coffee from the wall dispenser and sat back down at the table they were sharing.
"Sost," said Hal, "what are the things that make you think I'm younger than twenty?"
Sost stared at him for a long moment.
"You want to know what to look out for?" he said at last. "I'll tell you. The first thing is, keep your mouth shut. Sure, I know your voice changed four-five years ago; but every time you say something you talk like a kid. Hell, you think like a kid. So don't talk, if you can help it."
Hal nodded.
"All right," he said. "I won't."
"And take your time," said Sost. "Don't start talking to everyone you meet like he was an old friend. I don't mean act suspicious all the time, either. Just - hold back a little. Wait a bit. Don't go jumping around with your body, either. You get a little older, you won't have that kind of energy to waste. Sit still when you sit. But the big thing is - watch that talking. Just get in the habit of not doing it."
"You talk a fair amount," Hal said.
"There you go," Sost said. "That's just the sort of thing a kid would say. That's just the wrong thing. What's it change things for you, what I do? As far as me talking, I know what to say. I can make noise with my mouth all day long and not give anything away I don't want to. You, you give everything you've got away, every time you open your lips."
Hal nodded.
"All right," he said.
"That's better," said Sost. "Now, what're you planning to do tomorrow?"
"Wait and see," said Hal.
"All right." Sost nodded, in his turn. "Good for you. You're learning. But I mean, what're you going to do about those kips back at the Holding Area?"
Hal shrugged.
"That's even better. You'll do," said Sost. He got up. "I'm folding up. That's another difference. You grow up, and you know there's a next day coming. You don't forget it."
After the older man had left, Hal sat for a little while, enjoying the clean smells and the privacy of the dining room, in which he was now alone. Then he went to bed behind a locked door in the comfortable room his credit had been able to provide for him.
A knocking at his door seemed to wake him the minute he had closed his eyes. He got up, unlocked and opened the door, and found Sost dressed and waiting.
"What time is it?" Hal asked thickly.
"Seven-thirty," Sost said. "Or don't you want breakfast?"
They had breakfast in the same meal room and Sost drove him out to the Holding Area.
"I'll wait," said Sost, parking the truck when they got there just at the 8:30 roll-call time. "You're a natural to get assigned today. But if you don't, I can give you a lift back to the Guest House before I go on."
Hal started to get out of the truck to join the men standing before the office.
"Sit still," said Sost, under his breath. "What the hell, you can hear from here, can't you? What'd I tell you last night about jumping?"
Hal settled back in his seat in the truck. He sat silently with Sost, waiting with the standing crowd for Jennison to put in an appearance. He had time to study the others who were waiting; and he found himself looking for the man who had attacked him. But the wedge-shaped face and long body did not seem to be there. Perhaps the other man had been hurt more badly than Hal had thought… The thought chilled him, but after Sost's words the night before, he did not say anything to the older man.
He started to get out of the truck again.
"Sit still, I said," growled Sost softly.
"I've got to get my bag - if it's still there."
"After."
Hal sank back in his seat. He went back to searching the crowd for faces he could recognize. He picked out the man who had been doing the carving, but was not able to identify certainly any of the others from the cage. He gradually became aware that none of those in the crowd were meeting his eyes. In fact, the carver had turned away when Hal had started watching him.
Experimentally, he picked out a man he was sure he had never seen before and stared only at him. The man, apparently casually, first turned away from Hal's gaze; then, when Hal continued to watch, the other moved deeper into the crowd, stepping behind other, taller individuals and using them as screens until they moved, until he had been herded by Hal's unrelenting watch to the far edge of the crowd.
The door opened finally, and Jennison appeared. It was almost a quarter to nine. He was carrying a hard copy printout in his hand, and without looking at the crowd he began to read off names. Hal's was the third to be read. When Jennison had finished, he looked up and saw the truck with the two of them in it.
"Sost!" he called, and waved. Sost waved back. Jennison turned and went back into the office.
"You know him?" Hal asked.
"No," said Sost. "Looks like he knows me, though. Lots do."
The crowd before the office was beginning to disintegrate slowly as disappointed members of it began to break off toward the cages or the canteen and those whose names had been called moved up to cluster just outside the door.
"No hurry," Sost said, as Hal again started to get out of the truck. "Let the others go in first. Now's a good time to get that bag of yours."
"If it's still there," said Hal again, glumly.
Sost laughed, but said nothing.
Hal got out of the truck and, tensing instinctively, approached the men, who were still in a loose gathering before the office. They parted unobtrusively to let him through, with none of them looking directly at him in the process. Beyond them, the corridor between the rows of cages was empty, and the cages themselves were deserted except for a heavily inert body here and there on a bunk. He went to the cage he had been in the night before, stepped inside, and looked for the bunk he had occupied.
His bag was there, just where he had left it. He took it back to the truck. There were still a number of men waiting before the office door and as he came through the space before the building, one came out and another entered. Hal climbed back into the truck.
"It was there, all right," he said. "I can't believe it."
Sost chuckled, this time quietly.
"Who of them'd take it?" he asked.
Hal looked curiously at the older man; but playing his new game of speaking as little as possible, he waited, instead of asking what the older man had meant. Either Sost would tell him before the older man left, or the answer would emerge otherwise.
He sat comfortably with Sost until the last man had come out of the office, then got down from the truck and crossed the space to the office door, himself. He stepped in and found Jennison in position at his desk behind the counter. But this time Jennison got up, smiling, and came to the other side of the counter.