Split Infinity

Thus he had to proceed laboriously around the fence, going to far-flung gates where, of course, he had to debate the right-of-way with horses who outmassed him by factors of ten to fifteen. This slowed his work, and he was already behind. Fortunately he was a good runner, and if he moved swiftly the horses often did not bother to keep up. They could outrun him if they had a mind to, anytime, but they never raced when they didn’t have to. It seemed to be a matter of principle.  They did not feel the same rivalry with a man that they did with members of their own species.

Then he discovered the stile: a structure like a standing stepladder that enabled him to cross the fence and haul his wheelbarrow across without touching a board.  The horses could not navigate such a thing, and did not try. It was, in its fashion, a bridge between worlds.

With it he could at last get around the pastures fast enough to catch up to his work.

Now that he was on tenure, he was expected to take an individual name. He had gone by his father’s serf-name, followed by a dependence-number. When the Proton serf registry asked him for his choice of an original and personal designation, his irrevocable and possibly only mark of distinction, he gave it: Stile.

“Style? As in elegance?” the serf-interviewer inquired, gazing down at him with amusement. “A grandiose appellation for a lad your size.”

Stile’s muscles tightened in abdomen, buttocks, and shoulders. This “lad” was eighteen, full-grown—but to strangers he looked twelve. The depilatories in Proton wash water kept the hair off his face and genitals, so that his sexual maturity was not obvious. A woman his size would not have had a problem; depilatories did not affect her most obvious sexual characteristics. He was fed up with the inevitable remarks; normal-heighted people always thought they were being so damned clever with their slighting allusions to his stature. But already he was learning to conceal his annoyance, not even pretending to take it as humor. “Stile, as in fence.  S-T-I-L-E. I’m a pasture hand.”

“Oh.” He was so designated, and thereafter was in-variably addressed this way. The use of the proper name was obligatory among serfs. Only Citizens had the pleasure of anonymity, being addressed only as “sir.” If any serf knew the name of a Citizen, he kept it to himself, except on those rare occasions when he needed to identify his employer for an outsider.

It turned out to be a good choice. Stile—it was original and distinctive, and in the context of the Game, suggestive of the homonym. For in the Game he did indeed have a certain style. But best of all were the ramifications of its original meaning: a bridge between pastures. A stile represented a dimensionally expanded freedom and perception, as it were a choice of worlds.  He liked that concept.

With experience he became more proficient. Every clod of dung he overlooked was a mark against him, a sure route to ridicule by the other hands, all of whom were larger if not older than he and had more seniority.  In a society of workers who had no individual rights not relating to their jobs, the nuances of private protocol and favor became potent. “Stile—two clods in the buckwheat pasture,” the foreman would announce grimly as he made his daily review of demerits, and the group would snigger discreetly, and Stile would be low man on the farm totem for the next day. He was low man quite often, in the early weeks. Other hands would “accidentally” shove him, and if he resisted he received a reprimand for roughhousing that put him low for an-other day. For, except in egregious cases, the higher man on the totem was always right, and when it was one serf’s word against another’s, the low man lost. The foreman, basically a fair man, honored this convention scrupulously. He was competent, the only serf on the farm with actual power, and the only one granted the privilege of partial anonymity: his title was used instead of his name. He never overstepped his prerogatives, or permitted others to.

There came one day when Stile had not fouled up. A hulking youth named Shingle was low for the day—and Shingle brushed Stile roughly on the path to the service area. Stile drew on his Game proficiency and ducked while his foot flung out, “accidentally” sending Shingle crashing into the bam wall. Furious, Shingle charged him, fists swinging—and Stile dropped to the ground, put his foot in the man’s stomach, hauled on one arm, and flipped him through the air to land on the lush green turf so hard his body gouged it. Shingle’s breath was knocked out, and the other hands stood amazed.

The foreman arrived. “What happened here?” he demanded.

“An accident,” the others informed him, smirking innocently. “Shingle—fell over Stile.”