There were few objections to this scheme, although the chairman called for a detailed report. When the vote was cast the result was nine in favour, six against. When the report was produced, the city would transfer to continuous running as soon as could be managed.

8

I was due to leave the city for a survey mission to the north. In the morning I had been called away from my work on the tracks, and Clausewitz had given me my briefing. I would leave the city the next day, and travel twenty-five miles to the north of optimum, reporting back on the nature of the terrain and the positions of various settlements. I was given the choice of working alone or with another Future guildsman. Recalling the new and welcome acquaintanceship with Blayne, I requested that he and I work together, and this was granted.

I was eager to leave. I felt no obligation to remain on the manual work of the tracks. Men who had never been outside the city were working well as teams, and more progress was made than at any time we had employed local labour.

The last attack by the tooks now seemed a long way behind us, and morale was good. We had made it to the pass in safety, ahead was the long slope down through the valley. The weather was fine, and hopes were high.

In the evening I returned to the inside of the city. I had decided to talk over the survey mission with Blayne, and spend the night in the Futures’ quarters. We would be ready to leave at first light.

Walking through the corridors, I saw Victoria.

She was working alone in a tiny office, checking through a large batch of papers. I went inside, and closed the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

“You don’t mind?”

“I’m very busy.”

“So am I.”

“Then leave me alone, and get on with whatever it is.”

“No,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”

“Some other time.”

“You can’t avoid me for ever.”

“I don’t have to talk to you now,” she said.

I grabbed at her pen, knocking it from her hand. Papers fell on the floor, and she gasped.

“What happened, Victoria? Why didn’t you wait for me?”

She stared down at the scattered papers, and made no answer.

“Come on… answer me.”

“It’s a long time ago. Does it still matter to you?”

“Yes.”

She was looking at me now, and I stared back at her. She had changed a lot, seemed older. She was more assured, more her own woman… but I could recognize the familiar way she held her head, the way her hands were clenched: half a fist, two fingers erect and interfolded.

“Helward, I’m sorry if you were hurt, but I’ve been through a lot too. Will that do?”

“You know it won’t. What about all the things we talked about?”

“Such as?”

“The private things, the intimacies.”

“Your oath is safe… you needn’t worry about that.”

“I wasn’t even thinking of it,” I said. “What about the other things, about you and me?”

“The whispered exchanges in bed?”

I winced. “Yes.”

“They were a long time ago.” Perhaps my reaction showed, for suddenly her manner softened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be callous.”

“O.K. Say what you like.”

“No… it’s just that, I wasn’t expecting to see you. You were gone so long! You could have been dead, and no one would tell me anything.”

“Who did you ask?”

“Your boss. Clausewitz. All he’d say was that you’d left the city.”

“But I told you where I was going. I said I had to go south of the city.”

“And you said you’d be back in a few miles’ time.”

“I know,” I said. “I was wrong.”

“What happened?”

“I… was delayed.” I couldn’t even begin to explain.

“That’s all. You were delayed?”

“It was a lot further than I thought.”

Aimlessly, she began shuffling the papers, making them into a semblance of a tidy pile. But she was just working her hands; I’d broken through.

“You never saw David, did you?”

“David? Is that what you called him?”

“He was—” She looked up at me again, and her eyes were brimming with tears. “I had to put him in the crèche, there was so much work to do. I saw him every day, and then the first attack came. I had to be on a fire point, and couldn’t — Later we went down to the—”

I closed my eyes, turned away. She put her face in her hands, started to cry. I leant against the wall, resting my face against my forearm. A few seconds later I started to cry too.

A woman came through the door quickly, saw what was hap’ pening. She closed the door again. This time I leant my weight against it to prevent further interruptions.

Later, Victoria said: “I thought you would never come back. There was a lot of confusion in the city, but I managed to find someone from your guild. He said that a lot of apprentices had been killed when they were in the south. I told him how long you had been gone. He wouldn’t commit himself. All I knew was how long you’d been gone and when you said you’d be back. It was nearly two years, Helward.”

“I was warned,” I said. “But I didn’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“I had to walk a distance of about eighty miles, there and back. I thought I could do it in a few days. No one in the guild told me why I couldn’t.”

“But they knew?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“They could have at least waited until we’d had the child.”

“I had to go when I was told. It was part of the guild training.”

Victoria was now more composed than before; the emotional reaction had completely destroyed the antipathy that was there, and we were able to talk more rationally. She picked up the fallen papers, arranged them into a pile, then put them away into a drawer. There was a chair by the opposite wall, and I sat on it.

“You know the guild system is going to have to change,” she said.

“Not drastically.”

“It’s going to break down completely. It has to. In effect it’s happened already. Anyone can go outside the city now. The Navigators will cling to the old system for as long as they can, because they’re living in the past, but—”

“They’re not as hidebound as you think,” I said.

“They’ll try to bring back the secrecy and the suppression as soon as they can.”

“You’re wrong,” I said flatly. “I know you’re wrong.”

“All right… but certain things will have to change. There’s no one in the city now who doesn’t know the danger we’re in. We’ve been cheating and stealing our way across this land, and it’s that which has created the danger. It’s time for it to stop.”

“Victoria, you don’t—”

“You only have to look at the damage! There were thirty-nine children killed! God knows how much destruction. Do you think we can survive if the people outside keep on attacking us?”

“It’s quieter now. It’s under control.”

She shook her head. “I don’t care what the current situation looks like. I’m thinking about the long term. All our troubles are ultimately created by the city being moved. That one condition produces the danger. We move across other people’s land, we bargain for manpower to move the city, we take women into the city to have sex with men they hardly know… and all in order to keep the city moving.”

“The city can never stop,” I said.

“You see… already you are a part of the guild system. Always this flat statement, without looking at it in a wider light. The city must move, the city must move. Don’t accept it as an absolute.”

“It is an absolute. I know what would happen if it stopped.”

“Well?”

“The city would be destroyed, and everyone would be killed.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“No… but I know it would be so.”

“I think you’re wrong,” said Victoria. “And I’m not alone. Even in the last few days I’ve heard it said by others. People can think for themselves. They’ve been outside, seen what it’s like. There’s no danger apart from the danger we create for ourselves.”