In the kitchen the next morning he got more information from Helena. Holiday seemed to be a cross between saturnalia and Boy’s Week; for one day of the year the elders slightly relaxed their grip on the reins. On that day alone one could Speak Before Being Spoken To, Interrupt One’s Elders, even Leave the Room without Being Excused.
Whee, Ross thought sourly. But still …
The foreman, Dobermann, once you learned how to handle him, wasn’t such a bad guy. Ross, studying his habits, learned the proper approach and used it. Dobermann’s commonest complaint was of irresponsibility—irresponsibility when some thirty-year-old junior was caught sneaking into line ahead of his proper place, irresponsibility when Ross forgot to make his bed before stumbling out in the dark to his kitchen shift, one awful case of irresponsibility when Helena thoughtlessly poured cold water into the cooking vat while it was turned on. There was a sizzle, a crackle, and a puff of steam, and Helena was weeping over a broken heating element.
Dobermann came storming over, and Ross saw his chance. “That is very irresponsible of you, Helena,” he said coldly, back to Dobermann but entirely conscious of his presence. “If Junior Unit Twenty-Three was all as irresponsible as you, it would reflect badly on Mr. Dobermann. You don’t know how lucky you are that Mr. Dobermann is so kind to you.”
Helena’s weeping dried up instantly; she gave Ross one furious glance, and lowered her eyes before Dobermann. Dobermann nodded approvingly to Ross as he waded into Helena; it was a memorable tirade, but Ross heard only part of it. He was looking at the cooking vat; it was a simple-minded bit of construction, a spiral of resistance wire around a ceramic core. The core had cracked and one end of the wire was loose; if it could be reconnected, the cracked core shouldn’t matter much—the wire was covered with insulation anyhow. He looked up and opened his mouth to say something, then remembered and merely stood looking brightly attentive.
“—looks like you want to go back to the vats,” the foreman was finishing. “Well, Helena, if that’s what you want we can make you happy. This time you’ll be by yourself, too; you won’t have Ross to help you out when the going’s rough. Will she, Ross?”
“No, sir,” Ross said immediately. “Sir?”
Dobermann looked back at him, frowning. “What?”
“I think I can fix this,” Ross said modestly.
Dobermann’s eyes bulged. “Fix it?”
“Yes, sir. It’s only a loose wire. Back where I come from, we all learned how to take care of things like that when we were still in school. It’s just a matter of—”
“Now, hold on, Ross”; the foreman howled. “Tampering with a machine is bad enough, but if you’re going to turn out to be a liar, too, you’re going just too far! School, indeed! You know perfectly well, Ross, that even I won’t be ready for school until after Holiday. Ross, I knew you were a troublemaker, knew it the first day I set eyes on you. School! Well, we’ll see how you like the school I’m going to send you to!”
The vats weren’t so bad the second time. Even though the porridge was cold for two days, until somebody got around to delivering a different though equally worn-out cooking vat.
Helena passed out from the heat three times. And when, on the third time, Ross, goaded beyond endurance, kissed her again, there were no hysterics.
VI
From birth to puberty you were an infant. From puberty to Dobermann’s age, a junior. For ten years after that you went to school, learning the things you had neither the need nor the right to know before.
And then you were Of Age.
Being Of Age meant much, much more than voting, Ross found out. For one thing, it meant freedom to marry—after the enforced sexlessness of the junior years and the directed breeding via artificial insemination of the Scholars. It meant a healthy head start on seniority, which carried with it all offices and all power.
It meant freedom.
As a bare beginning, it meant the freedom to command any number of juniors or scholars. On Ross’s last punitive day in the dye vats, a happy ancient commandeered the entire staff to help set shrubs in his front lawn—a good dozen acres of careful landscaping it was, and the prettiest sight Ross had seen on this ugly planet.
When they got back to the dye vats, the yellow and blue had boiled over, and broken strands of yarn had fouled all the bobbins. Dobermann raged—at the juniors.
But then Dobermann’s raging came to an end forever. It was the night before Holiday, and there was a pretty ceremony as he packed his kit and got ready to turn Junior Unit Twenty-Three over to his successor. Everyone was scrubbed, and though a certain amount of license in regard to neatness was allowed between dinner and lights out, each bunk was made and carefully smoothed free of wrinkles. After half an hour of fidgety waiting, Dobermann called—needlessly—for attention, and the minister came in with his ancient retinue.
The rich mechanical voice boomed out from his breastplate: “Junior Dobermann, today you are a man!”
Dobermann stood with his head bowed, silent and content. Junior Unit Twenty-Three chanted antiphonally: “Goodbye, Junior Dobermann!”
The retinue took three steps forward, and the minister boomed, “Beauty comes with age. Age is beauty!”
And the chorus: “Old heads are wisest!” Ross, standing as straight as any of them, faked the words with his lips and tongue, and wondered how many repetitions had drilled those sentiments into Junior Unit Twenty-Three.
There were five more chants, and five responses, and then the minister and his court of four were standing next to Dobermann. Breathing heavily from his exertions, the minister reached behind him and took a book from the hands of the nearest of his retinue. He said, panting, “Scholar Dobermann, in the Book lies the words of the Fathers.
