Some ten kilometers from our castle, we find a weatherworn stone fort upon a low hill guarding a pass. Inside is a rustic survival box of iodine, food, a compass, rope, six durobags, a tooth- brush, sulfur matches, and simple bandages. We store the items in a clear durobag So supplies have been hidden about the valley. Something tells me there are more important items hidden in the countryside than little sur- vivor kits. Weapons? Transportation? Armor? Technology? They can't mean for us to make war with sticks and stones and metal tools. And if they don't want us to kill each other, stun weapons must soon replace our metal ones. We earn nasty sunburns that first day. The mist chills them as we return. Titus and his pack, six now, have just returned from a fruitless in- cursion to the plains. They've killed two goats but don't have a fire to cook with, since Sevro slipped off somewhere. I don't tell them about my matches. Cassius and I agree that Titus, if he wants to be the big man, should at least be able to conquer fire. Sevro, wherever he is, must agree as well. Titus's boys hit metal on stone trying to create sparks, but the stones of the castle don't spark. Clever Proctors. Titus's pack makes the dregs, the lowDrafts, fetch wood despite the fact that they have no fires. They all go hungry that night. Only Roque and Lea don't. They get some of our survival bars. I like the pair even if they are Golds, and I excuse befriending them by telling myself that I do it only to build my own tribe. Cassius seems to think that fast midDraft girl, Quinn, will be useful. But he can make himself think that about most pretty girls The tribes grow, and the first lesson is already under way.
Antonia finds friends with a squat, sour, curly- headed fellow named Cipio, and she manages to send groups armed with shovels and axes found in the castle to garrison Deimos and Phobos. The girl may be a spoiled witch, but at least she isn't stupid. Then Titus's pack steals their axes as they sleep and I revise my opinion. Cassius and I scout together. On the third day we see smoke rising in the distance, maybe some twenty kilometers to the east. It is like a bea- con in the dusk. Enemy scouting parties would be out like us. If it were closer or we had horses we would investigate. Or if we had more men, we might set out overnight and plan a raid for slaves. The distance and our lack of coher- ence make all the difference. Between us and the smoke are ravines and gulches that could hide warbands. Then there's many kilometers of plains to walk exposed. We won't make the trek. Not when some Houses have horses. I don't tell Cassius this, but I am afraid. The highlands feel safe, but just out there in the landscape beyond are roving bands of psychotic godlings. Godlings I do not want to run across quite yet. The thought of meeting other Houses is made all the more terrifying by the idea that even home is not safe. It's like Octavia au Lune always says: no man can pursue any endeavor in the face of tribal warfare. We can't afford to leave Titus alone for too long. He's already stolen berries Lea and Quinn collected. And this morning he tried to use the standard on Quinn to see if it could make slaves for his raiding parties out of the House's own members. It couldn't. "We have to bind the House together some- how," Cassius tells me as we scout the northern highlands. "The Institute is with us for the rest tion, ever." If we of our lives. lose, we may never gain position,ever.
"And if we're enslaved during the course of the game?" I ask. He looks worriedly over at me. "What worse loss could there be?" As if I needed more motivation. "Your father won his year, I wager. He was Primus?" I ask. To be an Imperator, he'd have to have won his year. "Right. Always knew he won his year, though I had no slagging idea what that meant till we got here." We both agree that in order to bind our House back together, Titus must go. But it is futile to fight him outright; that chance passed after the first day. His tribe has grown too large. I say we kill him in his sleep," Cassius suggests "You and I could do it." His words chill me. We make no decision, yet the proposition serves to remind me that he and I are different creatures. Or are we really? His wrath is a cruel, cold thing. Yet I never see the anger again, not even around Titus. He's all smiles and laughter and challenging members of Titus's pack to races and wrestling when they aren't going out on raids- just as I am around my enemies. Yet while I'm regarded warily by most, Cas- sius is loved by all except Titus's pack. He's even started sneaking off with Quinn. I like her. She killed a deer with a trap, then told a story about how she killed the thing with her teeth. Even showed us evidence--hair between her teeth and gums along with bitemarks on the deer. We thought we had a prettier Sevro on our hands till she laughed too hard to go on with the tall tale. Cassius helped her get the deer hair out of her teeth. I like a committed liar. Conditions worsen in the first few days. People remain hungry because we've yet to build a fire in the castle, and hygiene is quickly forgotten.
when two of our girls are snatched up by Ceres horsemen as they bathe in the river just beneath our gate. The Golds are confused when even their fine pores begin clogging and they gain pimples. "Looks like a beesting!" Roque laughs to Cassius and me. "Or a radial, distant sun!" I pretend to be fascinated by it, as though I didn't have them all my Red life. Cassius leans forward to inspect it. "Brother- man, that is just-" Then Roque pops the pimple right into Cassius's face, causing him to reel back and gag from disgust. Quinn falls over giggling "I do wonder sometimes," Roque begins after Cassius has recovered, "as to the purpose of all this. How can this be the most efficient method of testing our merit, of making us into beings who can rule the Society?" "And do you ever come to a conclusion?" Cas- sius asks warily. He keeps his distance now. "Poets never do," I say. Roque chuckles. "Unlike most poets, I some- times manage. And I have our answer to this." "Spit it out," Cassius urges. "As though I wasn't going to without in- struction from our resident primadonna." Roque sighs. "They have us here because this valley was humanity before Gold ruled. Fractured. Dis- united even in our very own tribe. They want US to gO through the process that our forefathers went through. Step by step, this game will evolve to teach us new lessons. Hierarchies within the game will develop. We'll have Reds, Golds, Cop- pers." "Pinks?" Cassius asks hopefully. "Makes sense," I say. "Oh, that would be ripe strange," Cassius laughs, twisting his wolf ring on his finger. "Mothers and fathers would be throwing fits if that went on. Probably why Titus leers at the girls. He likely wants a toy. Speaking of toys, where did he send Vixus?" I laugh. Vixus, likely the most dangerous of Titus's followers, and the others departed nearly two hours ago on Titus's orders to use Phobos Tower's height advantage to scout the plains in preparation for a raid on House Ceres. "It'd be best to have Vixus on our side if we make a play," I say. "He's Titus's right hand." Roque continues on a different train of thought. "I ... don't know about Pinks," Roque says. The idea of a Gold being a Pink offends him. "But ... the rest is simple. This is a microcosm of the Solar System." "Seems to me like capture the flag with swords if you recall that game," I reply. I never played the sport, but my studying with Matteo brought me up to speed on the games these children played in their parents' gardens. "Mhm." Cassius nods. He shoves a mock-seri- ous finger in Roque's chest. "Agreed. So you can take your quick talk and put it where the sun dare not shine, Roque. We two great minds have decided. It's a game of capture the flag." "I see." Roque laughs. "Not all men can under- stand metaphor and subtlety like me. But do not fear, muscular friends, I will be here to guide you through the mind-bending things. For instance, I can tell you that our first test will be to piece the House back together again before an enemy comes a-knocking." "Hell," I mutter, looking out over the edge of the parapet. "Something in your bum?" Cassius asks "Looks like the game just started." I point downward. Across the glen, just where the forest meets the grass plain, Vixus drags a girl by her hair. The first slave of House Mars. And far from being revolted, I'm jealous. Jealous that I did not cap- ture her. Titus's minion did, and that means that Titus now wields credibility.