I nodded to show my understanding of this, and he returned to the stage. The Navigator stood up. I read the oath silently, familiarizing myself with its phrases.

I faced the platform, aware of the attention of the others on me, not least that of my father.

“I, Helward Mann, being a responsible adult and a citizen of Earth do solemnly swear:

“That as an apprentice to the guild of Future Surveyors I shall discharge whatever tasks I am given with the utmost effort;

“That I shall place the security of the city of Earth above all other concerns;

“That I shall discuss the affairs of my guild and other firstorder guilds with no one who is not himself an accredited and sworn apprentice or a first-order guildsman;

“That whatsoever I shall experience or see of the world beyond the city of Earth will be considered a matter of guild security;

“That on acceptance as a full guildsman I shall apprise myself of the contents of the document known as Destaine’s Directive, and that I shall make it my duty to obey its instructions, and that further I shall pass on the knowledge obtained from it to future generations of guildsmen.

“That the swearing of this oath shall be considered a matter of guild security.

“All this is sworn in the full knowledge that a betrayal of any one of these conditions shall lead to my summary death at the hands of my fellow guildsmen.”

I looked up at Clausewitz as I finished speaking. The very act of reading those words had filled me with an excitement I could hardly contain.

“Beyond the city…” That meant I would leave the city, venture as an apprentice into the very regions which had been forbidden me, and were even yet forbidden to most of those in the city. The crèche was full of rumours about what lay outside the city, and already I had any number of wild imaginings about it. I was sensible enough to realize that the reality could never equal those rumours for inventiveness, but even so the prospect was one that dazzled and appalled me. The cloak of secrecy that the guildsmen placed around it seemed to imply that something dreadful was beyond the walls of the city; so dreadful that a penalty of death was the price paid for revealing its nature.

Clausewitz said: “Step up to the platform, Apprentice Mann.”

I walked forward, climbing the four steps that led up to the stage. Clausewitz greeted me, shaking me by the hand, and taking away from me the card with the oath. I was introduced first to the Navigator, who spoke a few amiable words to me, and then to the other chief guildsmen. Clausewitz told me not only their names but also their titles, some of which were new to me. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with new information, that I was learning in a few moments as much as I had learned inside the crèche in all my life to that date.

There were six first-order guilds. In addition to Clausewitz’s Future Surveyors guild, there was a guild responsible for Traction, another for Track-Laying and another for Bridge-Building. I was told that these were the guilds primarily responsible for the administration of the city’s continued existence. In support of these were two further guilds: Militia and Barter. All this was new to me, but now I recalled that my father had sometimes referred in passing to men who bore as titles the names of their guilds. I had heard of the Bridge-Builders, for instance, but until this ceremony I had had no conception that the building of a bridge was an event surrounded by an aura of ritual and secrecy. How was a bridge fundamental to the city’s survival? Why was a militia necessary?

Indeed, what was the future?

I was taken by Clausewitz to meet the Future guildsmen, among them of course my father. There were only three present; the rest, I was told, were away from the city. With these introductions finished I spoke to the other guildsmen, there being at least one representative from each of the first-order guilds. I was gaining the impression that the work of a guildsman outside the city was a major occupier of time and resources, for on several occasions one or other of the guildsmen would apologize for there being no more of their number at the ceremony, but that they were away from the city.

During these conversations one unusual fact struck me. It was something that I had noticed earlier, but had not registered consciously. This was that my father and the other Future guildsmen appeared to be considerably older than the others. Clausewitz himself was strongly built, and he stood magnificently in his cloak, but the thinness of his hair and his lined face betrayed a considerable age; I estimated him to be at least two thousand five hundred miles old. My father too, now I could see him in the company of his contemporaries, seemed remarkably old. He was of an age similar to Clausewitz, and yet logic denied this. It would mean that my father would have been about one thousand eight hundred miles at the time I was born and I already knew that it was the custom in the city to produce children as soon after reaching maturity as possible.

The other guildsmen were considerably younger. Some were evidently only a few miles older than myself; a fact which gave me some encouragement as now I had entered the adult world I wished to be finished with the apprenticeship at the earliest opportunity. The implication was that the apprenticeship had no fixed term, and if, as Bruch had said, status in the city was as a result of ability, then with application I could become a full guildsman within a relatively short period of time.

There was one person missing, whom I would have liked to be there. That was Jase.

Speaking to one of the Traction guildsmen, I asked after him.

“Gelman Jase?” he said. “I think he’s away from the city.”

“Couldn’t he have come back for this?” I said. “We shared a cabin in the crèche.”

“Jase will be away for many miles to come.”

“Where is he?”

The guildsman only smiled at this, infuriating me… for surely, now I had taken the oath I could be told?

Later, I noticed that no other apprentices were present. Were they all away from the city? If so, that probably meant that very soon I too could leave.

After a few minutes talking to the guildsmen, Clausewitz called for attention.

“I propose to recall the administrators,” he said. “Are there any objections?”

There was a sound of general approval from the guildsmen.

“In which case,” Clausewitz continued, “I would remind the apprentice that this is the first occasion of many on which he is bound by his oath.”

Clausewitz moved down from the platform, and two or three of the guildsmen opened the doors of the hail. Slowly, the other people returned to the ceremony. Now the atmosphere lightened considerably. As the hall filled up I heard laughter, and in the background I noticed that a long table was being set up. There seemed to be no rancour from the administrators about their exclusion from the ceremony that had just taken place. I assumed that it was a common enough event for it to be taken as a matter of course, but it crossed my mind to wonder how much they were able to surmise. When secrecy takes place in the open, as it were, it lays itself open to speculation. Surely no security could be so tight that merely dismissing them from a room while an oath-taking ceremony took place would keep them in the dark as to what was happening? As far as I could tell, there had been no guards at the door; what was there to prevent someone eavesdropping while I spoke the oath?

I had little time to consider this for the room was filled with activity. People spoke together in an animated way, and there was much noise as the long table was laid with large plates of food and many different kinds of drink. I was led from one group of people to another by my father, and I was introduced to so many people that I was soon unable to remember names or titles.