Turquoise was taken on a brief tour of inspection, and I tagged along behind as we walked past rows and rows of fresh fruit and veg, all being attended by Greys, shiny with sweat in the heat. There had been an outbreak of clutching brambles that required prefectural approval to destroy, as any prehensile plants were classified as “partly animal” and thus subject to the Biodiversity Continuance Directive of the Munsell Bestiary.

“Absolute pests, they are,” said the head gardener. “I know they can be taught simple tricks, but cleaning glass or weeding has always evaded them.”

Turquoise filled out the extermination order and gave it to Mr. Lime, who thanked him and said he needed to show him something else.

We walked down the central aisle toward the unused fallow section of the glasshouse, which had turned into a jungle of date palms and a small grove of bamboo, from which several marmosets stared at us cheekily, munching on fruit.

“We’ve had a bit of a problem with these recently,” said the gardener, opening a jam jar and showing us a large white centipede about five inches long and thicker than a man’s thumb, “and we have no idea what they are.”

I glanced at the Taxa bar code on its back.

“Phylum: Arthropoda. Class: Chilopoda,” I murmured, and they both stared at me.

“I can read bar codes,” I explained. “I can tell you it’s a centipede, female, and about six thousand generations from being Taxa tagged—but nothing more than that.”

“A useful skill,” said Mr. Lime, who was impressed. “Then you concur it is unknown?”

“I do.”

The gardener wiped his brow with a filthy handkerchief.

“Yewberry says the same. But if it’s not listed in the Munsell Bestiary, it should officially be Apocrypha—but we can’t ignore it as it’s eating through everything. Any suggestions, Mr. Turquoise?”

The Blue prefect stared at the pest minutely, which squirmed in Mr. Lime’s hand and gave out a series of high-pitched squeaks in the key of F.

“Can you eat them?”

“We haven’t tried.”

“Get a Grey to volunteer. If they’re not palatable I can still define them as ‘farmed comestibles’ under Rule 2.3.23.12.220. We can then simply trap them, fry them and dump them. Or, if they are palatable, feed them to the Greys. It might make them leave some bacon for us.”

Mr. Lime nodded agreeably at this fine display of loopholery, upon which we said our farewells and passed out of the south side of the glasshouse to walk in the direction of the Waste Farm.

“Now,” said Turquoise, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, “activities. Sport and dancing are compulsory, of course—do you favor cricket or soccer?”

I told him I preferred cricket but denied my skill with the bat. Being able to actually see the naturally red ball gave an Alpha Red an edge. If you wanted to hide your bestowal, it was good practice to miss a few.

“And your favorite hoof?”

“We used to dance the lambada quite a lot in Jade-under-Lime.”

Turquoise looked shocked, even though it was a leg-pull. I’d never danced the lambada—not even by myself, in secret.

“Quite inappropriate, Master Russett. We are fox-trot and rhumba people in East Carmine. Tango is permitted on occasion, but only for approved couples and well out of sight of the juniors. How about pastimes? Beekeeping? Photography? Reenactment societies? Slug racing?”

“You can race slugs?”

“It’s quite popular out here in the Redstones. Since slugs are hardwired for strict territorial limitations accurate enough to keep them out of gardens, all you need do is log the bar code on a local slug and then release it outside Vermillion. First one back wins the pot.”

“That must take a while.”

“Decades, sometimes. A champion my father released eighteen years ago should be hitting the home stretch in about two years.”

“I had no idea slugs were so long-lived.”

“It’s not the original slug,” he explained. “The command string for territoriality descends through the offspring, so all we need do is read the Taxa numbers on the slugs as they come in—their heredity can be quickly established. It takes about four generations per mile, Mrs. Lapis Lazuli tells me. It could be done faster, but slugs are easily distracted. So, what shall I put you down for?”

“None of them hugely appeal, sir.”

“Listen here, Russett, I have to put you down for something.”

“The Photography Society, then. But under Rule 1.1.01.23.555 I’d like to form my own association for the social advancement of the Collective.”

“I see,” Turquoise said suspiciously. He knew 1.1.01.23.555 well enough. It was one of the loopholes that had been serially abused over the years. “And just what would this association do?”

I thought of Jane wanting me to remain curious as a smokescreen for her own activities. “A Question Club.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Horses? No problem. Everyone likes horses. Especially horses. Horses like horses most of all.”

“No, no, not Equestrian Club—a Question Club.”

“There’s already a Question Club,” he said. “It’s called the Debating Society. There’s a meeting this evening, isn’t there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Frightful waste of time. An hour spent on the jigsaw puzzle would be an hour much better spent. If we don’t get a move on, we’ll not see the puzzle finished in our lifetime, and I must confess I’d rather like to know what the puzzle actually depicts before they wheel me into the Green Room.”

We had arrived at the Waste Farm, which for drainage purposes was always lower than the rest of the village. We found the chief-of-works next to one of the off-rotation settling tanks that was being scraped clean. He was a middle-aged man who was short, had a weather-worn face and whistled when he spoke, owing to a missing tooth that for some reason had failed to grow back. Like most of those versed in the arcane recycling arts, he was highly eccentric. He wore a bowler hat and insisted on a three-piece suit with a gardenia in his buttonhole. He wore no spot or gave any hint of Chromatic Hierarchy, which didn’t help me know whether I should talk up or down to him.

“Hullo!” said the chief-of-works, who gave his name only as Nigel. “I heard you had a spot of bother with a tree this morning.”

“You could say that.”

“Don’t feel bad by being outsmarted by a vegetable. You’re not anyone until you’ve been wandering in the forest whistling a merry tune, only to find yourself suddenly hauled in the air by your ankle and dumped in ninety gallons of partially digested kudu. I know I have.”

I looked around.

“The farm doesn’t smell half as bad as I thought it would.”

“The very idea!” exclaimed Nigel. “All the pits are sealed. If you can smell something it means we’re not doing our jobs properly. But listen, if you want to know how bad it can smell, come and poke your nose in the rendering sheds.”

Turquoise stayed in the office to check that the 87.2 percent recycling target was being met, and Nigel escorted me past the methane solidifiers to a brick building where the hot air was heavy with the pungent smell of heated offal. Despite the rudimentary exterior of the shed, the interior was scrubbed and tidy, the steel equipment all polished to a high shine. The concrete floor looked as though it was frequently hosed, and two of the plant’s workers were feeding chunks of animal waste into a shredder that was driven by an Everspin. The combined kettle and press were to one side, and a gloopy substance—yellow, apparently—was slowly dripping into a bucket as the machine heated and folded the waste to remove the fat.

I covered my mouth and nose with my handkerchief.

“It’s actually more skilled than you think,” said Nigel with a smile. “The renderers get paid extra when they have to deal with a villager—which is stupid, really, since it’s only something we walk around in.