Read Online Inverted World by Christopher Priest - Free Book Online Page B

breed again and again. If they’re not lucky enough to be born in the city, they can be brought from outside and sent away when they’ve served their purpose.” The sensitive subject again, but this time she didn’t falter. “I know that the work outside the city has to be done, and whatever it is it’s done at risk … but I’ve been given no option. Just because I’m a woman I have no choice but to be kept inside this damned place and learn fascinating things about food production, and whenever I can I have to give birth.”
    I said: “Do you not want to marry me?”
    “There’s no alternative.”
    “Thanks.”
    She stood up, walked angrily towards the steps. I followed her down, and walked behind her as she returned to her room. I waited in the doorway, watching her as she stood with her back to me, looking out of the window at the narrow alleyway between the buildings.
    “Do you want me to go?” I said.
    “No … come in and close the door.”
    She didn’t move as I did this.
    “I’ll make some more tea,” she said.
    “O.K.”
    The water in the pan was still warm, and it took only a minute or so to bring it back to boiling.
    “We don’t have to marry,” I said.
    “If it’s not you it’d be someone else.” She turned and sat beside me, taking her cup of the synthetic brew. “I’ve nothing against you, Helward. You should know that. Whether we like it or not, my life and yours is dominated by the guild system. We can’t do anything about that.”
    “Why not? Systems can be changed.”
    “Not this one! It’s too firmly entrenched. The guilds have the city sewn up, for reasons I don’t suppose I’ll ever know. Only the guilds can change the system, and they never will.”
    “You sound very sure.”
    “I am,” she said. “And for the good reason that the system which runs my life is itself dominated by what goes on outside the city. As I can never take part in that I can never do anything to determine my own life.”
    “But you could … through me.”
    “Even you won’t talk about it.”
    “I can’t,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    “I can’t even tell you that.”
    “Guild secrecy.”
    “If you like,” I said.
    “And even as you’re sitting here now, you’re subscribing to it.”
    “I have to,” I said simply. “I was made to swear—”
    Then I remembered: the oath itself was one of the terms of the oath. I had breached it, and so easily and naturally that it had been done before I’d thought.
    To my surprise, Victoria reacted not at all.
    “So the guild system is ratified,” she said. “It makes sense.”
    I finished my tea. “I think I’d better go.”
    “Are you angry with me?” she said.
    “No. It’s just—”
    “Don’t go. I’m sorry I lost my temper with you… it’s not your fault.
    Something you said just now: through you I could determine my own life. What did you mean?”
    “I’m not sure. I think I nieant that as the wife of a guildsman, which I’ll be one day, you’d have more of a chance of.
    “Of what?”
    “Well … seeing through me whatever sense there is in the system.”
    “And you’re sworn not to tell me.”
    “I … yes.”
    “So first-order guildsmen have it all worked out. The system demands secrecy.”
    She leaned back and closed her eyes.
    I was very confused, and angry with myself. I had been an apprentice for ten days, and already I was technically under sentence of death. It was too bizarre to take seriously, but my memory of the oath was that the threat had been a convincing one at the time. The confusion arose because unwittingly Victoria had involved the tentative emotional commitment we had made to each other. I could see the conflict, but could do nothing about it. I knew from my own life inside the crèche the subtle frustrations that arose through being allowed no access to the other parts of the city; if that were extended to a larger scale—allowed a small part in the running of the city, but given a point