“I’m coming out… don’t move.”

A moment later, a man wearing the guild-apprentice uniform stepped out from behind the bush, leveling his crossbow at Helward.

Helward shouted: “Don’t shoot! I’m an apprentice from the city.”

The man said nothing, but continued to advance. He halted about five yards away.

“O.K… stand up.”

Helward did so, seeking the recognition he anticipated.

“Who are you?”

“I’m from the city,” said Helward.

“Which guild?”

“The Futures.”

“What’s the last line of the oath?”

Helward shook his head in surprise. “Listen, what the — ?”

“Come on… the oath.”

“’All this is sworn in the full knowledge that a betrayal of any one — ‘”

The man lowered his bow.

“O.K.,” he said. “I had to be sure. What’s your name?”

“Helward Mann.”

The other looked at him closely. “God, I never recognized you! You’ve grown a beard!”

“Jase!”

The two young men stared at each other for a few seconds more, then greeted each other affably. Helward realized that they both must have changed out of recognition in the time since they had last met. Then they had both been beardless boys, agonizing about the frustrations of life inside the crèche; now they had changed in outlook as well as appearance. In the crèche, Gelman Jase had affected a worldliness and disdain for the order by which they had to exist, and he had mannered himself as a careless and irresponsible leader of the boys who “matured” less quickly. None of this was apparent to Helward as they stood there beside the river renewing their earlier friendship. His experiences outside the city had weathered Jase, just as they had weathered his appearance. Neither man resembled the pale, undeveloped, and naïve boys who had grown up together: suntanned, bearded, muscular, and hardened, they had both matured quickly.

“What was all that about, shooting at me?” said Helward.

“I thought you were a took.”

“But didn’t you see my uniform?”

“Doesn’t mean anything any more.”

“But—”

“Listen, Helward, things are changing. How many apprentices have you seen down past?”

“Two. Three, including you.”

“Right. Did you know the city sends an apprentice down past every mile or so? There should be many more down here… and as we all take the same route we ought to be meeting each other almost every day. But the tooks are catching on. They’re killing the apprentices, and taking their uniforms. Were you attacked?”

“No,” said Helward.

“I was.”

“You could have tried to identify me before you shot at me.”

“I aimed to miss you.”

Helward indicated his torn sleeve. “Then you’re just a lousy shot.”

Jase moved away, and went over to where his quarrel had fallen, he picked it up, examined it for damage, then replaced it in its pouch.

“We ought to be trying to reach the city,” he said when he returned.

“Do you know where it is?”

Jase looked worried.

“I can’t work it out,” he said. “I’ve been walking for miles. Has the city suddenly accelerated?”

“Not as far as I know. I saw another apprentice yesterday. He said the city had actually been delayed.”

“Then where the hell is it?” said Jase.

“Somewhere up there.” Helward indicated the track-remains leading north.

“Then we go on.”

By the end of the day they still had not sighted the city — though the tracks were now apparently the normal dimensions — and they made a camp in a patch of woodland through which a stream of clean water flowed.

Jase was far better equipped than Helward. In addition to his crossbow, he had a spare sleeping-bag (Helward’s wet one had started to smell, and he’d thrown it away), a tent, and plenty of food.

“What do you make of it?” said Jase.

“Down past?”

“Yes.”

“I’m still trying to understand it,” said Helward. “What about you?”

“I don’t know. The same, I suppose. I can’t make logic of what I’ve seen and yet I know I’ve seen and experienced it, and so it must be so.”

“How can ground possibly move?”

“You noticed it too?” said Jase.

“I think so. That’s what happened wasn’t it?”

Later, each told his own account of what had happened after he left the crèche. Jase’s experiences had been remarkably different from Helward’s.

He had left the crèche a few miles before Helward, and undergone many of the same experiences working outside the city. An essential difference, though, was that he had not married, and had been invited to meet some of the transferred women. As a result of this, he already knew the two women he was assigned to when he began the journey down past.

He had learned many of the stories told by the local inhabitants about the people of the city. How the city was populated by giants, how they plundered and killed, and raped the women.

As his journey southwards proceeded, Jase had realized that the girls were growing more frightened, and when he asked them why they said that they felt certain they would be killed by their own kind when they returned. They wanted to go back to the city. At this point Jase had been noticing the first effects of the lateral distortions, and was growing curious. He turned the girls back, and told them to make their own way back to the city. He intended to spend one more day on his own, then he too would return northwards.

He traveled south, but did not see much that interested him, then attempted to find the girls. He discovered them three days later. Their throats had been cut, and they were hanging upside down from a tree. Still recoiling from the shock, Jase himself was attacked by a crowd of local men, some of whom were wearing apprentices’ uniforms. He had managed to escape, but the men had given chase. There followed three days of nightmare. While making his escape he had fallen and badly twisted his foot, and in his lamed state could do little more than hide. During the chase, he had gone a long way from the tracks, and had moved south by several miles. The hunt had been called off, and Jase was alone. He stayed in hiding… but gradually felt a slow build-up of southwards pressure. He realized that he was in a region he could not recognize. He described to Helward the flat, featureless terrain, the tremendous pressure, the way in which physical distortions took place.

He had tried to move back in the direction of the tracks, but his weakened leg made progress difficult. Finally, he had been forced to anchor himself to the ground with the grapple and rope until he could walk again. The build-up of pressure had continued, and fearing the rope would hold no longer he had been forced to crawl northwards. After a long and difficult period he had managed to escape from the zone of worst pressure, and had headed back towards the city.

He had wandered for a long time without finding the tracks. As a consequence his knowledge of the terrain away from the immediate neighbourhood of the tracks was considerably greater than Helward’s.

“Did you know there’s another city over there?” he said, indicating the land to the west of the tracks.

“Another city?” said Helward incredulously.

“Nothing like Earth. This one is built on the ground.”

“But how… ?”

“It’s immense. Ten times, twenty times as big as Earth. I didn’t recognize it for what it was at first… I thought it was just another settlement, but one much larger. Helward, listen, it’s a city like the cities we learnt about in the crèche… the ones on Earth planet. Hundreds, thousands of buildings… all built on the ground.”

“Are there any people there?”

“A few… not many. There was a lot of damage. I don’t know what happened there, but most of it seemed to be abandoned now. I didn’t stay long because I didn’t want to be seen. But it’s a beautiful sight… all those buildings.”

“Can we go there?”