T'ai Cho shivered, then drew Kim against him once more. "Then I'd best stay, hadn't I?"
THE CASTING SHOP was a long, wide room with a high ceiling. Along its center stood six tall, spiderish machines with squat bases and long segmented arms; each machine three times the height of a grown man. To the sides were a series of smaller machines, no two of them the same, but all resembling to some degree or other their six identical elders. Between the big machines in the center and the two rows of smaller ones at the sides ran two gangways, each with an overhead track. Young men moved between the machines, readying them, or stood in groups, talking casually in these last few minutes before the work bell rang.
Kim stood in the doorway, looking in, and felt at once a strange affinity with the machines. He smiled and looked up at T'ai Cho. "I think I'll like it here."
The Supervisor was a Han; a small man named Nung, who bowed and smiled a lot as he led them through to his office at the far end of the Casting Shop. As he made his way between the machines, Kim saw heads turn and felt the eyes of the young men on his back, but his attention was drawn to the huge mechanical spiders that stretched up to the ceiling.
"What are they?" he asked the Supervisor once the partition door had slid shut behind them.
Supervisor Nung smiled tightly and looked to T'ai Cho. "Forgive my unpreparedness, Shih T'ai. I was only told of this yesterday evening."
It was clear from the manner in which he ignored Kim's question that he felt much put out by the circumstances of Kim's arrival.
"What are they?" T'ai Cho asked, pointedly repeating Kim's question. "The boy would like to know."
He saw the movement in Nung's face as he tried to evaluate the situation. Nung glanced at Kim, then gave the slightest bow to T'ai Cho. "Those are the casting grids, Shih T'ai. One of the boys will give a demonstration in a while. Kim"—he smiled insincerely at the boy—"Kim will be starting on one of the smaller machines."
"Good." T'ai Cho took the papers from the inner pocket of his er-satin jacket and handed them to the Supervisor. "You must understand from the outset that while Kim is not to be treated differently from any other boy, he is also not to be treated badly. The boy's safety is of paramount importance. As you will see, Director Andersen has written a note under his own hand to this effect."
He saw how mention of the Director made Nung dip his head, and thought once more how fortunate he was to work in the Center, where there were no such men. Yet it was the way of the Above, and Kim would have to learn it quickly. Here status counted more than mere intelligence.
The qualms he had had in Andersen's office returned momentarily. Kim was too young to begin this. Too vulnerable. Then he shrugged inwardly, knowing it was out of his hands. Mei fa tsit, he thought. It's fate. At least there was no Matyas here. Kim would be safe, if nothing else.
When T'ai Cho had gone, the Supervisor led Kim halfway down the room to one of the smallest and squattest of the machines and left him in the care of a pleasant-looking young Han named Chan Shui.
Kim watched the partition door slam shut, then turned to Chan Shui, his eyebrows forming a question.
Chan Shui laughed softly. "That's Nung's way, Kim. You'll learn it quickly enough. He does as little as he can. As long as we meet our production schedules he's happy. He spends most of his day in his room, watching the screens. Not that I blame him, really. It must be dreadful to know you've reached your level."
"His level?"
Chan Shui's eyes widened with surprise. Then he laughed again. "I'm sorry, Kim. I forgot. You're from the Clay, aren't you?"
Kim nodded, suddenly wary.
Chan Shui saw this and quickly reassured him. "Don't get me wrong, Kim. What you were—where you came from—that doesn't worry me like it does some of them around here." He looked about him pointedly, and Kim realized that their conversation was being listened to by the boys at the nearby machines. "No. It's what you are that really counts. And what you could be. At least, that's what my father always says. And he should know. He's climbed the levels."
Kim shivered. Fathers. . . . Then he gave a little smile and reached out to touch one of the long, thin arms of the machine.
"Careful!" Chan Shui warned. "Always make sure the machine's switched off before you touch it. They've cutouts built into their circuits, but they're not absolutely safe. You can get a nasty bum from them."
•"How does it work?"
Chan Shui studied Kim a moment. "How old are you, Kim?"
Kim looked back at him. "Nine. So they say."
Chan Shui looked down. He himself was eighteen, the youn-
gest of the other boys was sixteen. Kim looked five, maybe six at most. But that was how they were. He had seen one or two of them before, passing through. But this was the first time he had been allocated one to "nursemaid."
The dull, hollow tones of the work bell filled the Shop. At once the boys stopped talking and made their way to their machines. There was a low hum as a nearby machine was switched on, then a growing murmur as others added to the background noise.
"It's rather pleasant," said Kim, turning back to Chan Shui. "I thought it would be noisier than this."
The young Han shook his head, then leaned forward and switched their own machine on. "They say they can make these things perfectly silent, but they found that it increased the number of accidents people had with them. If it hums a little you can't forget it's on, can you?"
Kim smiled, pleased by the practical logic of that. "There's a lesson in that, don't you think? Not to make things too perfect."
Chan Shui shrugged, then began his explanation.
The controls were simple and Kim mastered them at once. Then Chan Shui took a slender vial from the rack beside the control panel.
"What's that?"
Chan Shui hesitated* then handed it to him.
"Be careful with it. It's ice. Or at least, the constituents of ice. It slots in there." He pointed to a tiny hole low down on the control panel. "That's what these things do. They spin webs of ice."
Kim laughed, delighted by the image. Then he looked down at the transparent vial, studying it, turning it in his fingers. Inside was a clear liquid with a faint blue coloring. He handed it back, then watched closely as Chan Shui took what he called a "template"—a thin card stamped with a recognition code in English and Mandarin—and slotted it into the panel. The template was the basic computer program that gave the machine its instructions.
"What do we do, then?" Kim asked, his expression as much as to say, Is that aR there is to it? It was clear he had expected to control the grid manually.
Chan Shui smiled. "We watch. And we make sure nothing goes wrong."
"And does it?"
"Not often."
Kim frowned, not understanding. There were something like a hundred boys tending the machines in the Casting Shop, when a dozen, maybe less, would have sufficed. It made no sense.
"Is all of the Above so wasteful?"
Chan Shui glanced at him. "Wasteful? What do you mean?"
Kim stared at him a moment longer, then saw he didn't understand. This, too, was how things were. Then he looked around and saw that many of the boys working on the smaller machines wore headwraps, while those on the central grids chatted, only a casual eye on their machines.
"Don't you get bored?"
Chan Shui shrugged. "It's a job. I don't plan to be here forever."
Kim watched as the machine began to move, the arms to extend, forming a cradle in the air. Then, with a sudden hiss of air, it began.
It was beautiful. One moment there was nothing in the space between the arms, the next something shimmered into existence. He shivered, then clapped his hands together in delight.