9

After a few days Toba returned, and told Dura and Farr that he had booked them into a labor stall in the Market. Dura was given to understand that Toba had done them yet another favor by this, and yet he kept his eyes averted as he discussed it with them, and when they ate Cris seemed embarrassed into an unusual silence. Ito fussed around the upfluxers, her eyecups deep and dark.

Dura and Farr dressed as usual in the clothes the family had loaned them. But Toba told them quietly that, this time, they should go unclothed. Dura peeled off the thick material of her coverall with an odd reluctance; she could hardly say she had grown used to it, but in the bustling streets she knew she would feel exposed — conspicuously naked.

Toba pointed, embarrassed, to Dura’s waist. “You’d better leave that behind.”

Dura looked down. Her frayed length of rope was knotted, as always, at her waist, and her small knife and scraper were comforting, hard presences just above her hips at her back. Reflexively her hands flew to the rope.

Toba looked at Ito helplessly. Ito came to Dura hesitantly, her hands folded together. “It really would be better if you left your things here, Dura. I think I understand how you feel. I can’t imagine how I’d cope in your position. But you don’t need those things of yours, your weapons. You do understand they couldn’t really be much protection to you here anyway…”

“That’s not the point,” Dura said. In her own ears her voice sounded ragged and a little wild. “The point is…”

Toba pushed forward impatiently. “The point is we’re getting late. And if you want to be successful today, Dura — and I assume you do — you’re going to have to think about the effect those crude artifacts of yours would have on a prospective purchaser. Most people in Parz think you’re some kind of half-tamed animal already.”

“Toba…” Ito began.

“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. And if she goes down the Mall with a knife at her waist — well, we’ll be lucky not to be picked up by the guards before we even reach the Market.”

Farr moved closer to Dura, but she waved him away. “It’s all right, Farr.” Her voice was steadier now. More rational. “He’s right. What use is this stuff anyway? It’s only junk from the upflux.”

Slowly she unraveled the rope from her waist.

The noise of the Market heated the Air even above the stifling clamminess of the Pole. People swarmed among the stalls which thronged about the huge central Wheel, the colors of their costumes extravagant and clashing. Dura folded her arms across her breasts and belly, intimidated by the layers of staring faces around her.

Farr was quiet, but he seemed calm and watchful.

Toba brought them to a booth — a volume cordoned off from the rest of the Market by a framework of wooden bars. Inside the booth were ten or a dozen adults and children, all subdued, unkempt and shabbily dressed compared to most of the Market’s inhabitants; they stared with dull curiosity at the nakedness of Dura and Farr.

Toba bade the Human Beings enter the booth.

“Now,” he said anxiously, “you do understand what’s happening here, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Farr, his eyes tight. “You’re going to sell us.”

Toba shook his round head. “Not at all. Anyhow, it’s nothing to do with me. This is a Market for work. Here, you are going to sell your labor — not yourselves.”

Four prosperous-looking individuals — three men and a woman — had already emerged from the Market’s throng and come over to the booth. They were studying both the Human Beings curiously but seemed particularly interested in Farr. Dura said to Toba, “I doubt it’s going to make much practical difference. Is it?”

“It’s all the difference in the world. You sign up for a fixed-term contract… Your liberty remains your own. And at the end of it…”

“Excuse me.” The woman buyer had interrupted Toba. “I want to take a look at the boy.”

Toba smiled back. “Farr. Come on out. Don’t be afraid.”

Farr turned to Dura, his mouth open. She closed her eyes, suddenly ashamed that she could do so little to protect her brother from this. “Go on, Farr. They won’t hurt you.”

Farr slid through the wooden bars and out of the booth.

The woman was about Dura’s age but a good deal plumper; her hair-tubes were elaborately knotted into a gold-and-white bun, and layers of fat showed over her cheekbones. With the air of a professional she peered into the boy’s eyecups, ears and nostrils; she bade him open his mouth and ran a finger around his gums, inspecting the scrapings she extracted. Then she poked at Farr’s armpits, anus and penis-cache.

Dura turned away from her brother’s misery.

The woman said to Toba, “He’s healthy enough, if underfed. But he doesn’t look too strong.”

Toba frowned. “You’re considering him for Fishing?”

“Yes… He’s obviously slim and light. But…”

“Madam, he’s an upfluxer,” Toba said complacently.

“Really?” The woman stared at Farr with new curiosity. She actually pulled away from him a little, wiping her hands on her garment.

“And that means, of course, for his size and mass he’s immensely strong, here at the Pole. Ideal for the Bells.” Toba turned to Dura, and his voice was smooth and practiced. “You see, Dura, the material of our bodies is changed, here at the Pole, because the Magfield is stronger.” He seemed to be talking for the sake of it — to be filling in the silence while the woman pondered Farr’s destiny. “The bonds between nuclei are made stronger. That’s why it feels hotter here to you, and why your muscles are…”

“I’m sure you’re right,” the woman cut in. “But…” She hesitated. “Is he…”

“Broken in?” Dura interrupted heavily.

“Dura,” Toba warned her.

“Lady, he is a Human Being, not a wild boar. And he can speak for himself.”

Toba said rapidly, “Madam, I can vouch for the boy’s good nature. He’s been living in my home. Eating with my family. And besides, he represents good value at…” — his face puffed out, and he seemed to be calculating rapidly — “at fifty skins.”

The woman frowned, but her fat, broad face showed interest. “For what? The standard ten years?”

“With the usual penalty clauses, of course,” Toba said.

The woman hesitated.

A crowd was gathering around the Market’s central Wheel. The noise level was rising and there was an air of excitement… of dangerous excitement, Dura felt; suddenly she wished the booth formed a more substantial cage around her.

“Look, I don’t have time to haggle; I want to watch the execution. Forty-five, and I’ll take his option.”

“Toba hesitated for barely a moment. “Done.”

The woman melted into the crowd, with a final intrigued glance at Farr.

Dura reached out of the booth-cage and touched Toba’s arm. “Ten years?”

“That’s the standard condition.”

“And the work?”

Toba looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard. I’ll not try to hide that. They’ll put him in the Bells… But he’s strong, and he’ll survive it.”

“And after he’s too weak to work?”

He pursed his lips. “He won’t be in the Bells forever. He could become a Supervisor, maybe; or some kind of specialist. Look, Dura, I know this must seem strange to you, but this is our way, here in Parz. It’s a system that’s endured for generations… And it’s a system you accepted, implicitly, when you agreed to come here in the car, to find a way to pay for Adda’s treatment. I did try to warn you.” His round, dull face became defiant. “You understood that, didn’t you?”

She sighed. “Yes. Of course I did. Not in every detail, but… I couldn’t see any choice.”

“No,” he said, his voice hard. “Well, you don’t have any choice, now.”

She hesitated before going on. She hated to beg. But at least Toba and his home were fixed points in this new world, nodes of comparative familiarity. “Toba Mixxax. Couldn’t you buy us… our labor? You have a ceiling-farm at the Crust. And…”