with a shudder. Perhaps it was all for the best that it had led him out here, cast him, ultimately, into what could turn out to be the greatest adventure of all time. But he could not bring himself to think this through. He looked at Krzakwa, wondered what thoughts were producing his peculiar look. 'Tem?' The man looked over at him. 'I need to be entertained. . . .' Concern replaced the other expression, and Krzakwa nodded. 'Okay. My turn, huh?' They hooked up, settled down, and went under.
All the little boys and girls on the Moon were fully regimented. It was said they liked it that way, that it was appropriate to their social development. . . .
What was called the children's dormitory at Picard was inreality a multipurpose room. The hexagonal bedchambers that lined the walls were in continuous occupation, and the twenty-four-hour 'day' was divided into three eight-hour periods in which the children of Groups 1, 2, and 3 slept. But while the other thirds slept, classes were held below. It was safe to say that, during the five years between the time a child left the supervision of his parents and entered the apprenticeship of his trade, he might spend fully eighty-five percent of his time in this one large hall.
The floor of the dormitory was partitioned into classrooms, a cafeteria, and a health maintenance facility. There were the needs of six hundred boys and girls to meet, and things had to be carefully organized. The population was regulated to assure that only six hundred children would be at the correct age at any given time, and seven-year- olds were continuously entering the system as twelve-year-olds left. Tem was in Group 2, eleven years old, going on the time when he would be transferred to Group 3
for his last year there.
He stood halfway back in the classroom row, supported by the thin column from which the keyboard and screen extended. Though standing was no hardship in Lunar gravity, and in fact was the preferred mode for the youngsters, the arrangement had been designed primarily as a way to save space. He was adjacent to four children, Akio Kurosawa and Sadie Klein in back and front, and Greg Indagar and Patrick Lore on either side. These four he had come to know very well, since almost all activities were organized in the same alphabetical way. Samwar Kirk had occupied Sadie's position until shortly before the memory began, and he had been Tem's best friend, but he had graduated to 3. The communication with this 'gang of four' was remarkable, consisting mostly of furtive looks, stifled giggles, and hand signals. Tem understood that each similar group within the class had developed similar, or in many cases the same, methods. Individual children would move on, but the culture would stay. Now it was the time devoted to 'socialization,' and within certain limits they were free to roam about the classroom and talk to whomever they liked. They spoke in careful whispersand every now and again cast a look at the monitor, a short, fat old man with red skin and a broken nose, who sat, bored and wishing, Tem guessed, for a smoke. Some looked, instead, at the long metal dowel that he used as a prop, wondering if it would ever be used for something else.
The old man whistled and called out 'Time!' and they quickly returned to their assigned spots. The screens were already lit with a calendar and clock showing their progress and future assignments on both a long-term and short- term ruler. Tem sighed, keying in his presence, and responded to a series of questions carefully framed to determine his attitude. He lied without even thinking about it. Hour 4's goal was to master the beginning theorems of Euclidean geometry, and the learning programs ticked off, carefully leading him along to enter the correct answers and providing more detailed explanation when he was wrong. Tem had already found out that the simplest way was to concentrate and cooperate, blotting out everything but the programmed task at hand. In this way he was perhaps unique, because, talking to others about their progress, he had found that they were still doing lessons he had finished as much as a year before. He wondered whether the 3s on the lesson's serial numbers meant he was doing Group 3 work. It was probably so. It made him feel more than a little smug. The memory sequence jumped forward and it was time for exercise. A slim young woman with a pleasant smile took the place of the monitor and led them in a patriotic song, some of which was in a patois that Tem never could quite understand. They sang a more energetic song about pride in being a child, pride in being from Crisium , but most of all pride in being an inhabitant of this harsh, isolated world where sacrifices were absolutely necessary. As they sang this song, which went on interminably, they were led in rhythmic isometric exercises, writhing in comical ways, occasional laughter blotted out by the words of the song. After an hour of this, they were called back to their screens for a lesson on history. These lessons were much cruder than those on math and the sciences, since they couldn't use canned programs fromEarth, and everyone moved at the same pace. It was then that the hand signals began. . . . Time jumped forward again and it was supper. They filed in even queues toward the walls, climbing up the handholds past the descending Group 3'ers. Tem slid himself into the recess of his bedchamber, about halfway up, and closed the hatch behind him. The fluorescent light came on, revealing the foot of the bed on which he was sitting, the sink/toilet, and a screen and keyboard on a moving arm, not unlike those in the classroom. It was prohibited to personalize the cubicle in any way, since he shared it with two others, but he had an area of one gigabyte in the computer that he could do with as he wished. In fact he was encouraged to 'play' on the computer for as long as an hour before sleep, and many programs both entertaining and educational were at his beck and call. It was one place upon which they had not stinted.
Finally, he slept, knowing that it would be more than a year before he graduated. The sequence came to an end.
'Shit,' muttered Sealock. 'Was it always like that?'
'In one way or another. That was the worst of it, though. Later we had more free time, because the planners assumed we would go berserk otherwise. I guess I chose that particular memory because of what you were saying, before, about the way things are on Earth. I don't know what you were complaining about.'
'Yeah. I didn't think you'd understand,' said Brendan, smiling. 'In some ways you had it lucky. You always knew who the bad guys were.'
After setting up the scene in the dome, Demogorgon decided to look in on Vana. The subsidiary program that allowed her to move among the illusions of Bright Illimit was undoubtedly keeping her out of trouble, but there was no harm in checking. He quickly located the section of the program with which she was interacting and projected himself into it.
She had been having a picnic on a hill in the southern marches, toward Rin Renala, under a huge spreading sarisdahn tree that provided shade from both the suns. A clothhad been spread out not far from the place where she'd landed her personal skimmer and, not surprisingly, she was humping madly with a huge, dark man Demogorgon recognized as Qasartun, the King of Radhamash. As he approached, smiling wryly, he cleared his
