of a delicate cloth, a strange fashion. It came upon me very slowly what she was. that she had come here from a world unimaginably far. And the wonder of it was that for all her strange skin and eyes and hair and mind, she was human, as I am human: I had no doubt of that. I felt it. For a moment it disturbed me deeply. Then it ceased to trouble me and I felt a great curiosity, almost a yearning, a drawing to her. I wished to know her, to know what she knew.
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In me the owner's soul was struggling with the free soul. So it will do all my life.
Keo and Ramayo stopped going to school after they had learned to read and write and use the calculator, but I kept on. When there were no more classes to take from the school the Hame kept, the teachers helped me find classes in the net. Though the government controlled such courses, there were fine teachers and groups from all over the world, talking about literature and history and the sciences and arts. Always 1 wanted more history.
Ress, who was a member of the Hame, first took me to the Library of Voe Deo. As it was open only to owners, it was not censored by the government. Freed assets, if they were light-skinned, were kept out by the librarians on one pretext or another. I was dark-skinned, and had learned here in the City to carry myself with an indifferent pride that spared one many insults and offenses. Ress told me to stride in as if I owned the place. I did so, and was given all privileges without question. So I began to read freely, to read any book I wanted in that great library, every book in it if I could. That was my joy, that reading. That was the heart of my freedom-Beyond my work at the boxmaker's, which was well paid, pleasant, and among pleasant companions, and my learning and reading, there was not much to my life- I did not want more. I was lonely, but felt that loneliness was no high price to pay for what I wanted.
Ress, whom I had disliked, was a friend to me. I went with her to meetings of the Hame, and also to entertainments that I would have known nothing about without her guidance. 'Come on, Bumpkin,'
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she would say. 'Got to educate the plantation pup.' And she would take me to the makil theater, or to asset dance halls where the music was good. She always wanted to dance. I let her teach me, but was not very happy dancing. One night as we were dancing the 'slow-go' her hands began pressing me to
her, and looking in her face I saw the mask of sexual desire on it, soft and blank. 1 broke away. 'I don't want to dance,' I said.
We walked home. She came up to my room with me, and at my door she tried to hold and kiss me. I was sick with anger. 'I don't want that!' I said.
'I'm sorry, Rakam,' she said, more gently than I had ever heard her speak. 'I know how you must feel. But you've got to get over that, you've got to have your own life. I'm not a man, and 1 do want you.'
I broke in — 'A woman used me before a man ever did. Did you ask me if I wanted you? I will never be used again!'
That rage and spite came bursting out of me like poison from an infection. If she had tried to touch me again, I would have hurt her. I slammed my door in her face. I went trembling to my desk, sat down, and began to read the book that was open on it.
Next day we were both ashamed and stiff. But
Ress had patience under her City quickness and roughness. She did not try to make love to me again, but she got me to trust her and talk to her as I could not talk to anybody else- She listened intently and told me what she thought. She said, 'Bumpkin, you have it all wrong. No wonder. How could you have got it right? You think sex is something that gets done to you. It's not. It's something you do. With
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somebody else- Not to them. You never had any sex. All you ever knew was rape.'
'Lord Erod told me all that a long time ago.' I said. I was bitter. 'I don't care what it's called. I had enough of it. For the rest of my life. And I'm glad to be without it.'
Ress made a face. 'At twenty-two?' she said.
'Maybe for a while. If you're happy, then fine- But think about what I said. It's a big part of life to just cut out.'
'If I have to have sex, I can pleasure myself,' 1 said, not caring if I hurt her. 'Love has nothing to do with it.'
'That's where you're wrong,' she said, but I did not listen. I would learn from teachers and books which I chose for myself, but I would not take advice I had not asked for. I refused to be told what to do or what to think. If I was free, I would be free by myself. I was like a baby when it first stands up.
Ahas had been giving me advice too. He said it was foolish to pursue education so far. 'There's nothing useful you can do with so much book learning,' he said. 'It's self-indulgent. We need leaders and members with practical skills.'
'We need teachers!'
'Yes,' he said, 'but you knew enough to teach a year ago. What's the good of ancient history, facts about alien worlds? We have a revolution to make!'
I did not stop my reading, but I felt guilty. I took
a class at the Hame school teaching illiterate assets and freedpeople to read and write, as I myself had been taught only three years before. It was hard work. Reading is hard for a grown person to learn,
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tired, at night, after work all day. It is much easier to let the net take one's mind over.
I kept arguing with Anas in my mind, and one day I said to him, 'Is there a Library on Yeowe?'
'I don't know.'
'You know there isn't. The Corporations didn't leave any libraries there. They didn't have any. They were ignorant people who knew nothing but profit. Knowledge is a good in itself. I keep on learning so that I can bring my knowledge to Yeowe. If I could, I'd bring them the whole Library''
He stared. 'What owners thought, what owners did — that's all their books are about. They don't
need that on Yeowe.'
'Yes they do,' I said, certain he was wrong, though again I could not say why.
At the school they soon called on me to teach history, one of the teachers having left. These classes went well. I worked hard preparing them. Presently I was asked to speak to a study group of advanced students, and that, too, went well. People were interested in the ideas I drew from history and the comparisons I had learned to make of our world with other worlds. I had been studying the way various peoples bring up their children, who takes the responsibility for them and how that responsibility is understood, since this seemed to me a place where a people frees or enslaves itself.
To one of these talks a man from the Embassy of the Ekumen came. I was frightened when I saw the alien face in my audience. I was worse frightened when I recognised him. He had taught the first course in Ekumenical History that I had taken in the net. I had listened to it devotedly though I never
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participated in the discussion. What I learned had had a great influence on me. I thought he would find me presumptuous for talking of things he truly knew. I stammered on through my lecture, trying not to see his white- cornered eyes.
He came up to me afterwards, introduced himself politely, complimented my talk, and asked if I had read such-and-such a book. He engaged me so deftly and kindly in conversation that I had to like and trust him. And he soon earned my trust. I needed his guidance, for much foolishness has been written and spoken, even by wise people, about the balance of power between men and women, on which depend the lives of children and the value of their education. He knew useful books to read, from which I could go on by myself.
His name was Esdardon Aya. He worked in some high position, I was not sure what, at the Embassy. He had been born on Hain, the Old World, humanity's first home, from which all our ancestors came.
Sometimes I thought how strange it was that I knew about such things, such vast and ancient matters, I who
