hologram cube. She made no sound.
The gist of Keane’s tirade was—expulsion from the Terran community. Farber had dared to step across the line that Keane had drawn, and he would be struck down for it. None of this was surprising to Farber either, although “struck down” was a rather strong way to put it. Farber had broken no Terran laws—in fact, laws covering this situation did not as yet exist—but only the directives of the Co-operative. Keane had judicatory power over the Terrans in certain special circumstances, but they were sharply limited. He could not prosecute Farber. Nor could he exile him from Earth; as a Terran citizen he was entitled to eventual passage to Earth if destitute, although it might take him a couple of years to make the connections to get there. Nor could Keane keep from Farber a small regular stipend to be paid toward his support. The law—pushed through by Labor—insisted on this to keep the threat of firing by the Co-operative, and the possibly fatal abandonment of the discharged man in an alien society, from becoming the undefiable weapon it could have been. But Keane did have the power to dispose over the operation of the Co-operative on “Lisle,” and he could bar Farber from the use of any Co-operative facilities. As this included the Enclave and most of the Terran establishments on the planet, it was trouble enough for Farber.
Effectively, it cut him off from all of his own people. Now he was really an expatriate.
“—traitor to your race,” Keane was saying, pious and prissy, when Farber finally told him to go fuck himself.
Without ceremony, they left the Enclave.
That afternoon, they moved up to Old City.
As a member of the Thousand Families, it was Liraun’s privilege to live in Old City, and, as her kin-by-marriage, it was also Farber’s. He would have preferred to waive privilege and live in New City, which he found a much more pleasant place, but Liraun was uncharacteristically adamant on this point. Too emotionally drained for a fight, Farber gave in to her.
They moved into the same house Liraun had vacated when she’d come down to live with Farber—it had stood unclaimed and uninhabited all the weeks she’d spent at the Enclave, there being little population pressure in Aei as a whole, and none at all in Old City. The house stood just a little behind and above Kite Hill, fronting on a broad cobblestone alley known as the Row. In one of the dominant architectural styles of Old City, it was a slate-roofed oblong building of black rock, narrow across the base, consisting of three large rooms stacked directly one on top of the other, connected by stairs and ladders, with the topmost room used mostly for storage. It was already furnished, so moving was only a matter of bringing their small personal possessions in, and their clothes, putting them away, and then cleaning the house. It was done to the last detail within two hours.
In the morning, Liraun returned to her old job, running a lathe in a precision machine shop in Toolmaker Way, near Cold Tower Hill in the New City. She picked up her work as though she had never been gone. Of course, no one commented on her absence, and, except for one or two polite words of greeting, no one remarked her return.
Farber was left alone in the house.
He had the uneasy feeling that everything had happened too fast.
· · ·
That afternoon he wandered aimlessly out into the Old City, exploring the adjacent neighborhoods in ever-widening spirals. On Kite Hill, appropriately enough, he found a group of Cian children flying an enormous, amorphous black-and-orange kite that looked, to his Earth-trained eye, like a dragon, although it could just as easily have been a squid or a snake or a jellyfish or any of a dozen other things. Other than the shrill voices of the playing children, an occasional flapping-canvas sound from the kite as warring air-currents took it, and the faint—almost subliminal—constant humming of the wind
The gist of Keane’s tirade was—expulsion from the Terran community. Farber had dared to step across the line that Keane had drawn, and he would be struck down for it. None of this was surprising to Farber either, although “struck down” was a rather strong way to put it. Farber had broken no Terran laws—in fact, laws covering this situation did not as yet exist—but only the directives of the Co-operative. Keane had judicatory power over the Terrans in certain special circumstances, but they were sharply limited. He could not prosecute Farber. Nor could he exile him from Earth; as a Terran citizen he was entitled to eventual passage to Earth if destitute, although it might take him a couple of years to make the connections to get there. Nor could Keane keep from Farber a small regular stipend to be paid toward his support. The law—pushed through by Labor—insisted on this to keep the threat of firing by the Co-operative, and the possibly fatal abandonment of the discharged man in an alien society, from becoming the undefiable weapon it could have been. But Keane did have the power to dispose over the operation of the Co-operative on “Lisle,” and he could bar Farber from the use of any Co-operative facilities. As this included the Enclave and most of the Terran establishments on the planet, it was trouble enough for Farber.
Effectively, it cut him off from all of his own people. Now he was really an expatriate.
“—traitor to your race,” Keane was saying, pious and prissy, when Farber finally told him to go fuck himself.
Without ceremony, they left the Enclave.
That afternoon, they moved up to Old City.
As a member of the Thousand Families, it was Liraun’s privilege to live in Old City, and, as her kin-by-marriage, it was also Farber’s. He would have preferred to waive privilege and live in New City, which he found a much more pleasant place, but Liraun was uncharacteristically adamant on this point. Too emotionally drained for a fight, Farber gave in to her.
They moved into the same house Liraun had vacated when she’d come down to live with Farber—it had stood unclaimed and uninhabited all the weeks she’d spent at the Enclave, there being little population pressure in Aei as a whole, and none at all in Old City. The house stood just a little behind and above Kite Hill, fronting on a broad cobblestone alley known as the Row. In one of the dominant architectural styles of Old City, it was a slate-roofed oblong building of black rock, narrow across the base, consisting of three large rooms stacked directly one on top of the other, connected by stairs and ladders, with the topmost room used mostly for storage. It was already furnished, so moving was only a matter of bringing their small personal possessions in, and their clothes, putting them away, and then cleaning the house. It was done to the last detail within two hours.
In the morning, Liraun returned to her old job, running a lathe in a precision machine shop in Toolmaker Way, near Cold Tower Hill in the New City. She picked up her work as though she had never been gone. Of course, no one commented on her absence, and, except for one or two polite words of greeting, no one remarked her return.
Farber was left alone in the house.
He had the uneasy feeling that everything had happened too fast.
· · ·
That afternoon he wandered aimlessly out into the Old City, exploring the adjacent neighborhoods in ever-widening spirals. On Kite Hill, appropriately enough, he found a group of Cian children flying an enormous, amorphous black-and-orange kite that looked, to his Earth-trained eye, like a dragon, although it could just as easily have been a squid or a snake or a jellyfish or any of a dozen other things. Other than the shrill voices of the playing children, an occasional flapping-canvas sound from the kite as warring air-currents took it, and the faint—almost subliminal—constant humming of the wind
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