Rite of Passage

Jimmy and I got off the shuttle at Entry Gate 5 on the Third Level. This was supposedly where our group was to meet at two o’clock. We were about ten minutes early. The shuttle door slid open and we left the car. When we were clear, the car flicked away, responding to a call from another level, much like an elevator. On the cross-level line, a few feet away, there were several ears just sitting and waiting to be called.

The door leading out of the shuttle room was double, with both sides standing open. Above it a sign read: ENTRY GATE 5, THIRD LEVEL: PARK. Through the open door I could see light, grass, dirt and a number of kids about my age, all beyond the gate.

“There they are,” Jimmy said.

The Third Level is divided into three distinct and separate types of areas. First there are the areas under cultivation, producing food, oxygen, and fodder for the cattle we raise. Beef is our only on-the-hoof meat, our other meats coming from cultures raised in vats, also here on the Third Level. The second type of area is park. Here there are trees, a lake, flowers, grassland, picnic areas, room to walk, room to ride. This is what you might wish the planets were like. The last type of area is the wilds, which is much like the parks but more dangerous. As the maps might have it, here there are wilde beastes. The terrain is more sudden and the vegetation is left to find its own way. It’s designed for hunting, for chance-taking, and for training not-quite-adults. I’d never been in the wilds up to this time, only in the ag and park areas.

“Come on, then,” I said.

We went through the doors, then through what amounted to a short tunnel, perhaps ten feet long. The transparent gate dilated and we went through. Outside there were trees and stables, a corral among the trees, and a building that had a wall from about two feet off the ground to about seven feet, and about three feet higher an open-gabled roof. This held lockers and showers.

It was only here on the Third Level that you could appreciate the size of the Ship. Everywhere else there were walls at every hand, but here your view was all but unimpeded. It was fully miles to the nearest point where roof above and ground below met ship-side. The roof was three hundred feet up and it took a sharp eye to pick out sprinklers and such as individual features.

Behind us, the shuttle tube rose out of the station and disappeared blackly into the roof far above. The crosslevel shuttle tube went underground from the station so that was not visible.

It was still before two, so the kids. who were there already were standing under the trees by the corral and watching the horses. I recognized Venie Morlock among them. I wasn’t surprised to see her there since she was only one month older than I and I had expected that we would wind up in the same Trial group.

Others were arriving behind us and coming out of the shuttle station. Jimmy and I moved over to join the others watching the horses. I suppose I might have learned to ride when I was smaller just as I had learned to swim, but for no good reason in particular I hadn’t. I wasn’t afraid of horses but I was wary of them. There was another girl who wasn’t. She was reaching through the fence and teasing one, a red roan mare.

A tall, large-built boy near us looked at her and said, “I can’t stand children and that Debbie is such a child.”

A moment later there was a metallic toot as somebody blew on a whistle. I looked at my watch and saw that it was two exactly. There were two men standing on the single step up to the locker building. One had a whistle. He was young, perhaps forty-five, and smoothskinned. He was also impatient.

“Come on,” he said, and beckoned irritatedly. “Come on over here.”

He was about medium-height and dark-haired, and he had a list in his hand. He looked like the sort of person who would spend his time with lists of one sort or another. There are people, you know, who find no satisfaction in living unless they can plan ahead and then tick off items as they come.

We gathered around and he rattled his paper. The other man stood there rather quietly. He was also medium height, but slighter, older, considerably more wrinkled, and much less formally dressed.

“Answer when your name is called,” said the younger man, and he began reading off our names. He started with Allen, Andersson, and Briney, Robert, who was the large boy who was unenthusiastic about children, and he ended with Wilson, You and Yung. There were about thirty names.

“Two missing,” he said to the other when he was done. “Send them a second notice.”