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  “I can’t believe you’d want to, after what you told me last night,” Val said.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No. I don’t. I’m not convinced this isn’t just another self-destructive impulse.”

  Tedla looked taken aback. “I need to tell you more, then,” it said.

  “I’d like that,” Val said. “I’d particularly like to know how you met Magister Galele.”

  “All right. But I have to tell you about another person first.”

  When Tedla looked down to collect its thoughts, Val hit the Record button on the terminal again. The red light flashed as Tedla began to speak.

  ***

  On the day I left Brice’s, a random event changed the entire course of my life.

  Mallow didn’t feel well that morning. During the four-hour aircar trip to the Brice’s agency at Magnus Convergence, it became sicker and sicker. By the time we arrived it was in such pain that the pilot dropped it off at a curatory. We later learned the verdict: appendicitis.

  The illness would have been of no great consequence, except that Mallow had been scheduled to go to a patternist order at Tapis Convergence, and the elector herself, who was visiting Magnus on business, had been intending to take it back that day. The agents were in the embarrassing position of having to inconvenience the head of an order. They argued it over right in front of us as we waited in the loading dock for transport to our new assignments. At last they told the other three Personals—Whisper, Trice, and me—to wait till they had the problem sorted out.

  We waited about two hours, watching the other Brice’s blands disperse to the delivery vehicles, never to be seen by us again. I kept thinking of my reunion with Laki. At last a nervous, worried-looking young man came out and ordered us to follow him. We trooped through a door into human space. It made me uneasy, because we were still in our gray coveralls, our identity uncamouflaged.

  The man led us into an office where two women were waiting. The one who rose to look us over was in questionary colors, with a sash of office. She was a small woman with a brisk and kindly manner. My eyes met hers for a second before I had a chance to drop my gaze decently to the floor.

  “That one,” she said decisively.

  There was a whisper of papers, and the other woman said, “Tedla.” The young man said something in an undertone, and she cleared her throat. “Oh. That’s the one scheduled to go to the Polygrave’s house.”

  “So?” the client said. There was a challenge in the word.

  “It’s...had special training, elector.”

  “All the better.”

  “You might not find it as satisfactory as the others.”

  “A Brice’s bland? Not satisfactory?” the elector said.

  The agent quickly changed tune. “All our blands are qualified. Take that one if it’s what you want. We’ll replace it if it doesn’t work out.”

  “Good,” the elector said, having gotten her way. The two agents conferred with each other in an undertone.

  My world had just turned upside down. Everything I had earned, everything I had started to count on, had been snatched away. I wasn’t going to live at Magnus. I wasn’t going to see Laki. I stared at the floor, feeling wronged.

  They exchanged a few words about payment, then the elector took my papers and said, “Well, Tedla, follow me.”

  I did as I was told. I never saw Whisper or Trice again.

  The elector led the way out to an aircar pad, where her private vehicle was waiting. I knew she wouldn’t want to sit next to a neuter, so I found a spot on the floor of the luggage area in back, and strapped myself to the wall. We took off with a swoop that left my stomach on the ground. The elector glanced back at me, saw my bleached face, and said peremptorily to the pilot, “Go easy, Massower. You’ll make the child sick.”

  I took heart a little from that. The elector seemed like a decent person, unlikely to mistreat her blands. But I still had mixed feelings about going to Tapis. I had grown up near there, and had actually been there once. But I dreaded the thought of meeting any of my creche-mates again. If any of them had stayed in the area after matriculation, and I was to be serving a prominent elector, then it was a horrible possibility.

  We flew a long time straight into the westering sun. When I peered out the window, I saw grassland below us, mile upon mile stretching to the horizon, broken only by wrinkled, branching watercourses shaped like roots. I had never imagined so much grass in my life; it was like an ocean. The sun was on the horizon when we began to bank and descend in spirals, and I glimpsed below us a cleft in the prairie where a river rushed through a deep, shadowy gorge. On the plain at the edge of the canyon was a complex of aboveground buildings and a small airpad. There was nothing else: no lights, no vehicles, no sign of any habitation. Just grass.

  When we were down and the pilot killed the engine, the silence was stunning. The elector began to unbuckle her straps, so I did the same. Timidly, I said, “Is this where I’m going to live?”

  She turned around to look at me. “Yes. You are going to be serving a very great man who once did service to our order. He is one of the wisest and most learned men alive.”

  I was so bewildered by now that I couldn’t think of another question. The pilot opened the door and the elector climbed out. I followed her.

  The wind struck me right away, blustering against my ears and pushing me off balance. I was to learn it never stopped out here. I looked around; all seemed bleak and deserted—nothing but some round-topped sheds, a water tower, and grass.

  An elderly bland was approaching us across the airpad, followed by another one in gray coveralls, pushing a luggage cart. The elector called out, “Pelch! I have a job for you.” She took me by the shoulders and steered me firmly forward so the old bland could see me. It had a tight, curly mat of gray hair and mild, crinkled blue eyes. It took some gold-rimmed glasses from its pocket and put them on to survey me. It looked like a studious old elf.

  “It’s for the squire,” the elector said, meaning me. “A personal valet. Do you think he’ll be pleased?”

  “I have no idea,” Pelch said.

  “Well, take it down and clean it up,” she said. She handed Pelch her carrying bag. “These are the clothes I want it to wear. Call me when you’re ready. I’ll go see the squire now.”

  “He’s in the river room,” Pelch said.

  A significant look passed between them, and she said with a note of concern, “Is he all right?”

  Pelch merely shrugged. The elector walked off quickly.

  “What’s your name?” Pelch said, eyeing me skeptically.

  “Tedla, sir,” I said without thinking, then blushed. Its air of authority had made it seem human.

  Pelch’s eyebrows rose and it said drily, “We can do without the ‘sir.’” I felt like a fool. “Well, come along, Tedla,” it said with an air of taxed resignation. “I suppose we’ll have to find room for you.”

  We descended a set of plain, poured-stone steps into the stark, utilitarian decor of grayspace. Pelch led me down a corridor with a plain tile floor, exposed ductwork, and harsh white lights. After a day of strange places, it seemed relaxing and homey, a space where I could be at ease. It even smelled of blands.

  We came to a hygiene station where five or six shower-heads hung over open drains in the floor. “Wash yourself up,” Pelch said, taking a rough, threadbare towel from a cupboard and hanging it on a hook for me. “Be sure to soap your hair.” It left.

  I did as I was told. As I was drying myself, another bland about my age peeked in curiously. It had a gnomish face with oversized ears and a huge mouth. When it grinned, I saw it had crooked teeth.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “I’m Britz,” it said. Its teeth whistled when it talked.

  “I’m Tedla.” I draped the towel around my neck and went to the bench where Pelch had left my new clothes in their sack. Britz looked on curiously as I took them out. There was a white silk shirt cut wide in
the sleeves and ruffled at the neck; tight-fitting blue knee breeches with gold buckles; sheer stockings; and black polished shoes. The materials were very fine; they seemed too good for a bland.

  “Am I really supposed to put these on?” I asked Britz, since there was no one else to ask.

  “I suppose you could show up in a towel,” it said.

  It had a point. I had already put my coveralls down the laundry chute; this was my only choice. I sat down and started putting them on.

  “What’s your job, Britz?” I asked.

  “I was the squire’s Personal. Are you going to take over now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything, even where I am.”

  “You’re at Menoken Lodge.”

  That didn’t enlighten me much. “How many blands work here?”

  “In the household, just nine. But we’re a working ranch. If you count the hands and herders, there are more than a hundred.”

  “How are you treated?”

  Britz screwed up its face. “Not bad. Old Pelch is a worker bee. ‘Are you getting all the dirt? In this household we wax the wood. How do you expect to meet the squire’s standards if your work’s no better than that?’” As it gave Pelch’s words, Britz took on a pose of such perfect mimicry that I surprised myself by laughing.

  “Who’s your supervisor?” I said.

  “Pelch.”

  “You mean you don’t have a human supervisor?” This made me a little alarmed. I imagined a household of anarchy, disorganized blands running into each other.

  “Just the squire, and he doesn’t care what we do as long as he doesn’t find out about it. Pelch pretty much runs things. Pelch has been with the squire all its life, and knows what he wants.”

  I had finished dressing, and stood up, feeling self-conscious in the finery.

  “I’m supposed to bring you up to the demi-lounge when you’re done,” Britz said.

  I followed it. We passed a bustling kitchen where five or six blands were at work. It seemed like a relaxed, busy place. We threaded up a metal stair to an unmarked door, where Britz knocked. Pelch quickly opened it. The old bland inspected me on the stair landing, and finding I met its standards, let me through into the small room on the other side.

  I had clearly passed into human space. The room was decorated in teal and white. A huge couch was set against one wall; on the other was a massive mirror with a counter before it, and polished granite basins with shining spigots. The carpet felt bouncy as moss.

  “Wait here,” Pelch said severely, and left.

  Alone, I sneaked over to the mirror to look at myself. The new clothes made me look tall and skinny. The effect would have been passably elegant, if it hadn’t been for the frightened expression on my face.

  The elector came in, filling the room with noise and presence, as humans do. She looked me up and down and said, “That’s more like it. You’ve done wonders, Pelch!” She pursed her lips critically, fingering my hair. “Fetch a scissors. It looks too girlish. That may have been the Polygrave’s taste, but it’s not the squire’s.”

  Pelch obediently produced the scissors, and I saw blond ringlets fall onto the blue carpet as she snipped. “There,” she said with satisfaction when she was done. “It looks like a perfect young gentlebland.” She smiled at her own witticism, since there was no one else in the room to appreciate it.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked, quaking inside.

  She said seriously, “Squire Tellegen is a noble but melancholy man. Your job will be to make his life pleasant and cheer him up in any way you can.”

  I had no coherent idea then why it seemed like such an impossible demand, or why I felt such a sense of despair at succeeding. Now, it seems simple: They wrench a child from the only home it has ever known, dehumanize it with abuse, whisk it bewildered to a place it’s never seen—then ask it to cheer someone up. It defies common sense.

  She led me out into the house. I had never seen such a beautiful place. We crossed a darkened, grottolike room. Its domed ceiling had a circular skylight that let in a bluish light from the fading sky outside. The walls were constructed as if from ruins overgrown with greenery. Rivulets of water ran down pebbled stream beds inset in the floor to the center of the room, where a sunken pool glowed with azure light, and lazy fish turned to and fro. The room was filled by the trickle of water and the smell of greenery.

  The next room we entered was as dramatic as the first was subdued. Exposed wood beams jutted high into a cathedral ceiling. One whole wall was glass, rising twenty feet to the massive beams. That end of the room jutted out like the prow of a ship over the chasm where the river raced far below. Outside the glass, where a precarious balcony overhung the gorge, I could see mist rising against the fluted black cliffs opposite. We descended a staircase to a sunken area where furniture was arranged around a central fire pit. There was no one in the chairs. The only person in the room stood looking out the glass wall into the frightful black chasm beyond.

  We came to a halt near the fireplace. “Prosper,” the elector said, “I have brought you something.”

  The man at the window turned to us. He was elderly, but stood absolutely erect, with a poise and command that made me think he must have once been in charge. He was tall and lean, and his clothes were subdued but elegant. His eyes, when they fell on us, looked tired and passionless, like a hot fire that has burned down to coals.

  The elector pushed me gently forward. “An addition to your staff. A personal valet. A trained one, this time.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed as he focused on me. I saw the quick flash of intelligence in them. He glanced at the patternist behind me. He had figured something out about this situation that I didn’t understand.

  “What is it, a bland?” he said.

  “Matriculated nine months ago, and straight from training at Brice’s. You will be its first guardian.”

  His brows drew together angrily. “Ovide, what possessed you to bring this poor child here as if it were some sort of gift? Take it back where it belongs. I don’t need another bland. This whole thing is abhorrent to me.”

  With all I had been through that day, this last rejection struck me like a blow. Hopelessness whirled up in my brain. What did they do with blands rejected by their guardians? Was I never going to have a home?

  The elector’s hand had been resting lightly on my shoulder; now her grip tightened. “Stop jumping to conclusions, Prosper. You’ve completely misunderstood. I was at Magnus today, at the Brice’s agency, when I learned that this bland was slated to go to the Polygrave’s house as a Personal. I know the Polygrave. Believe me, you will be saving it from a very unpleasant life if you will just be my accomplice and take it in.”

  I knew it was a lie—she had picked me before ever hearing of the Polygrave, and never would have seen me if it hadn’t been for Mallow’s illness. But the tale was close enough to the truth that I would have no trouble remembering it.

  I couldn’t tell whether he believed her. He hesitated, as if debating whether to resist, then gestured me to come over to where a lamp cast a pool of light on the floor. I went, emotions battling in my tired mind. He studied my face in the light. I snatched a look at his own face. He had once been a handsome man, but now looked wan and neglected.

  “Brice’s, eh?” he said to me. “I visited there once, years ago, when old Brice was still alive. He had some very advanced ideas about training blands. He always demanded the best from them. It was a good place, then.” He paused as if waiting for me to say something.

  “It’s still a good place, sir,” I said.

  “They trained you to be at ease with humans, did they?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a gentle touch on my chin, he tilted my face toward the light. “Such beauty,” he said softly. “What a waste for the world. And a burden for you.”

  Despite all my training, our eyes met. I stood there transfixed, feeling that he saw into my soul, and understood every particle of
my being. There was compassion in his face, but it wasn’t just for me. It was for all blands, all humans, caught in this terrible trap together. His eyes wandered away toward the black precipice outside the window. His sadness seemed to fill the air, like silence.

  At last he turned back to me. I had recovered my manners, and my eyes were decently downcast. He said, “What’s your name, child?”

  “Tedla, sir.”

  “Would you like to stay here?”

  “Yes, sir. Very much.”

  “All right, then. I could use a Personal with some training. Britz is not adequate, despite all Pelch can do.” His voice sounded resigned, but when I stole an anxious look at him, he smiled kindly. “Go down and have them feed you. Pelch will explain your duties in the morning.”

  I turned away in time to catch the look of satisfaction on the elector’s face.

  ***

  That night I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as I hit the roundroom floor, and never even stopped to think that I was sleeping in a pile of perfect strangers.

  It was different the next morning, when I was wakened by the stirring of the others around me. I looked around and didn’t recognize a single face. The roundroom itself was drab and threadbare, and the neuters around me all seemed old, slow, and work-worn.

  I spied Britz then, still asleep. One of the old neuters was poking it with a foot, and Britz was pretending not to notice. I crawled over to it. “Britz,” I whispered, “you’ve got to show me what to do.”

  One eye came open. “Oh, Tedla,” Britz mumbled. “Am I glad you’re here.” Then it suddenly sat up in a panic. “Oh my god, I’ve got to get the squire’s coffee! Why does he have to get up so early?” It scrambled out of the roundroom into the hygiene station, but by then all the showers were taken by the older blands, who gave Britz an “it serves you right” look and took their time. We stood and waited, Britz fidgeting impatiently.

  “Can’t you just skip the shower?” I whispered.

  “No, Pelch inspects us.”

  I noticed then that Pelch had not been among us in the roundroom. “Where is Pelch?” I asked.

  “It has a private room, with a bed,” Britz said significantly. “Says the roundroom is bad for its back.”