“Okay,” she said, stepping aside to let me past, “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You’ll stop to quarantine on the way back. Make an excuse and head toward the river. I’ll meet you down there. Understand?”

I told her I understood, and she nodded her head toward the door. I walked slowly out, hoping to impressher withmy insouciant manner, an effect that was somewhat dented when I stumbled on the doormat.

I picked up the Caravaggio and returned to where Dad was waiting for me at the color hydrant. He was not alone. There was a man with him, and he was from National Color. I knew this because he had the splashy paint-tin logo embroidered on his breast pocket, and his denim boiler-suit was liberally covered with smudges, drops, splashes and smears of a hundred different synthetic hues that hung to the cloth like jewels. It showed he had been doing the job for a while; the color-soiled coverall was a mark of rank and worn with pride. He had been checking the magenta in the hydrant as a cheery splash of vented hue lay glistening on the ground, and he was just putting away a leather-cased analyzer. Even more exciting was that he had arrived by bicycle—a sleek racing model of considerable vintage with all the gears fully working. It would be too much to hope he would allow me to ride the exempted Leapback, but I stared, nonetheless.

“Where the Ostwald have you been?” asked Dad.

“Exploring,” I stammered, my recent conversation with Jane still ringing in my ears. I wasn’t going to mention Zane, Jane or the faded Pooka woman in the Colorman’s presence—or indeed, at all. Dad didn’t like to be told stuff he shouldn’t know. Swatchmen could sometimes tread fine lines of conflicted loyalty between Council and family, and deniability helped.

“This is His Colorfulness Matthew Gloss,” remarked Dad, turning to the Colorman, “before he was elevated to National Color, he was a Russett— distantly related.”

I shook hands in something of a daze—I’d not met someone with the title “Colorfulness” before. It was a title rarely bestowed. I couldn’t stare openmouthed for long, however, as Dad said we should be leaving.

We crossed the river to the safety of the opposite bank, with myself and Dad carrying the Caravaggio and the Colorman with the stack of swatches Dad had liberated. Once there, we took the time to size each other up more carefully. Matthew Gloss was a relaxed-looking gent of late middle age with a craggy timeworn face. What little hair he did have was wispy and stuck out in many directions, and his ears seemed inordinately large.

“You say you’re from East Carmine?” he said, once more fulsome introductions were finally over. “Not on foot, surely?”

Dad explained that we had a Ford and suggested that he join us for the trip back, to which the Colorman readily agreed, as he had just pushed his bicycle across the roadless gap that began at the remote pump station at Yerwood, six miles away, and he could do with a break.

We sat on a wall to wait for Fandango, and the Colorman told us he was doing a pipeline inspection because Camberwick Red had been receiving their grid magentas at greatly reduced chroma, and that suggested a fracture somewhere in the network of feed pipes.

“It’s not an easy job, either,” he added, “the grid’s full of disused spur lines, most of which are unmapped.”

Fandango arrived soon after, having fortunately started the Ford without trouble, and after more introductions, we headed back toward East Carmine, complete with sixty-seven swatches, a cure for the sniffles, a Caravaggio, a traveling Colorman with a twenty-one-speed bicycle and the knowledge that Jane would finally tell me what was going on.

Quarantine

The janitor brought the Ford to a stop on a curved bluff next to the weathered WELCOME TO EAST CARMINE sign. We were within easy sight of the village, less than a mile away, and Fandango flashed a Morse code mirror-message that we had returned, were safe and well and had picked up a traveler. The lightning lookout flashed back that the message had been received, and confirmed that our quarantine would end at midday. If we were infected with Mildew, we would certainly show symptoms within two hours.

The morning was hot, so we sat under a nearby tree while Fandango brewed some tea on an oil stove and the Colorman told us about his career, which sounded forty times better than managing a stringworks. I listened with rapt attention as he spoke of the burning and intractable issues of the day with a sense of authority that I’d not heard before.

He told us that the Saturation Dispersion Index—known to all and sundry simply as the Fade—would doubtless continue to rise, which was glum news indeed. Mailboxes that had been typically painted once every half century now needed a new coat every decade. It placed an intolerable strain on limited pigment resources, and caused an increased demand for scrap.

“Is there any truth to the rumor that too much viewing accelerates the Fade?” I asked, as much had been written about the subject, and not all of it sensible.

“None at all,” said the Colorman. “In fact, I would recommend as much viewing as possible, to get the most out of the synthetic color before it goes.”

“Surely,” said Dad, “increased yield of the color harvest will take care of the shortfall?”

The Colorman told us that peak production was long past, and unless new toshing fields were opened up within the unspoiled Great Southern Conurbation, synthetic color might be rationed even more than it was.

“What about the Riffraff?” I asked, since if it weren’t for their continued occupation within the Inner Boundary and the problems crossing the hundred-yard-wide Zone of Disagreeability, the rich toshing fields of the Great Southern Conurbation would have been open long ago.

“Aggressive use of Variant-R Mildew,” said the Colorman in a low voice, “and if what I hear is correct, something like that will be happening quite soon.”

“How would such an action be framed?” asked my father, since the Rules specifically forbade the harming of any human, no matter how base their personal hygiene, habits or quality of speech. And Homo feralensis, although undeniably primitive, were definitely human.

“That’s the clever part,” said the Colorman. “The depredations they wreak upon the landscape and crops allow them to be reclassified as vermin—and thus within the scope of Rules regarding eradication.”

He laughed and added, “Loopholery at its finest.”

Dad and I exchanged glances but made no comment. I couldn’t deny that Riffraff were little more than walking biohazards, but once Mildew touches your family, you never wish it on anyone—not Yellows, not unpopular prefects, not even the Riffraff.

Sensing our nonalignment with his strident views, the Colorman moved his conversation to safer territory and outlined his recent work at East Park, one of the three truly great gardens within the Collective.

“I heard it was spectacular,” said Dad, who was something of a Chromobotanist. “I’d like to go and view it one day.”

“It’s more magnificent than you can possibly imagine,” replied the Colorman. “Full CYM feed boosted to eighty pounds’ pressure. We can achieve chroma and brightness at almost sixty percent, and anything off-gamut is hand tinted. They don’t just stick to the Botanical Swatch, either—intermediaries, secondaries, triadics—an infinite blaze of subtle hues that enliven the spirit and banish greyness from the soul. The lupin beds are particularly fine, and last time I counted, we used eighty-four different shades of pink alone.”