The Birdwatcher, Page 2

department, but Julia wasn't sure which factions were still standing, much less which one was on top. So she stood at the bridge, hating that it was built to Turner the Fifth standards, which disdained any 'ornament' that might distract from surrounding Nature – and which nitpickedly counted side rails as ornament.

  It didn't help that she'd seen more recent bridges, which had side rails. It's not like the rails were actually forbidden; in fact, they'd been hailed as progress.

  Theoretically, she could file a citizen suggestion that the bridge be brought up to date, but she was afraid to do that, especially after the reprimand.

  She doubted that a suggestion would do much good, anyway. She worked in a Remote Area, so far down the Upgrade-Worthy Priority List that it might as well not be on a priority list. In general, the fewer people who would see a structure, the less it mattered if it was outdated. Out here, except for the helicopter pilots who brought in supplies or hauled off beef, for as far as the eye could see (and reportedly for far beyond that) there was only herself, and – part of the time, and too far away to talk to – the birdwatcher on the other side of the river.

  It was time for him to be there. As usual, she looked up to gaze at the spot where he usually stood for his bird count.

  He waved at her from the top of the low hill. It was clear that he wanted her to move. Knowing that he was charged with avian population stability, she quickly complied, moving herself and nearby cows off to the side he'd indicated.

  He aimed near the tops of trees on the riverbank and fired. He fired a second time, and an eagle fell. It wasn't like him to miss like that; to hit the wrong type of bird.

  He fired again, and another eagle fell, this time out of the sky. Julia reluctantly concluded that for the first time in her life, eagles had acquired an unhealthy population.

  The birdwatcher stood still, watching, even after the eagles had flown away. It looked like he meant to fire again, should they return.

  Julia gave up on the idea of asking Authority if she could take the cattle across the bridge, for fear she'd be ordered to do it before the birdwatcher was through shooting. She went to feed her herd, out of her nearly-gone supply of authorized hay.

  After lunch, Renzo carefully washed the table, and dried it. With ceremony, he took his Informer from his pocket, and placed it on the table. He sat, jigging the chair into perfect alignment as he pulled it close. The extra attention to detail when sitting down to a Lesson had been drilled into him from infancy. There was no doubt that it heightened the sense of importance of the activity. As far as Renzo was concerned, this was only proper, given the subject.

  Today was a special day. The day before, he had completed a round of lessons. Today, he got to start over, this time at a higher level, with a higher ranking. He could by now repeat most of the lessons by heart. He smiled. He was becoming more and more accomplished, in a subject held to be important by Society. It felt good.

  He depressed the button that indicated that he was ready for a Lesson. The screen lit up, to show a man who looked just like Renzo; or rather, just like Renzo would look if he were a few years older, and had spent less time out in the sunshine and weather.

  "Good afternoon, Citizen," the man said, in the wonderfully rich voice and proper enunciation for which Pac-Nor Progressives were noted.

  "Good afternoon, Judge," Renzo replied with a similarly rich voice and veneer of courtesy, even though he knew he was speaking to an interactive recording.

  "Today, we begin the Foundational Lessons from the beginning, at Level 26," the Judge said.

  Renzo nodded, and smiled, pleased to hear it confirmed that he was, indeed, at Level 26. After this year's round of lessons, he would graduate to adult status, finally – provided, of course, that he did well.

  He wiped the smile off his face, and focused with the same concentration he'd used in shooting eagles.

  "What is the chief end and purpose of a citizen?" the Judge asked.

  "To serve History, and Order, and one's own breed, regardless of personal cost," Renzo said.

  "You have answered correctly," the Judge said. "How do we know how to serve History and Order?"

  "By careful observance of the decrees of Sacred Government. By this, we serve the Future correctly, as well as glorify Society today."

  "You have answered correctly..."

  The cattle were getting restive. Currying sometimes calmed them, so Julia got the currycomb and a bristle brush off pegs in the tool shed, and clucked at the cows. The friendlier ones jostled with the needier ones to get to her first, but once the initial excitement died down, she had them waiting in a proper-pecking-order line for their turn at a grooming session. The cows were still in thick winter hair, and were caked here and there with mud and manure, so the short metal teeth of the curry, and the soft bristles of the brush, weren't going to make much headway, but the cattle seemed to like the attention as much as they appreciated any improvement to their coat.

  Julia sang to the cattle as she worked. She wasn't quite sure she correctly remembered which was the currently recommended cattle taming song, but didn't feel like putting down her brushes and pulling out an Informer to check. If she were still back at the training facility, surrounded by other people, it would matter enough to look it up, she thought. After all, she wouldn't want to misinform a fellow citizen in general, or a fellow breed member in particular. Out here, though, all alone, there didn't seem to be any harm in using the song she'd been using. Besides, the cattle seemed to like it. Certainly, they liked it better than the music chosen for them in the previous round by the heads of the department. That melody had been choppy, loud, fast, in a minor key. It was meant to be inspirational, she had been informed. The cattle had not found it so, and neither had Julia.

  She had worried that she might be asked to give a report on the efficacy of that song.

  When she was younger, she hadn't worried so much about such things. But then, when she was younger, she had almost always been deemed to have given the right answer, in the right spirit. Somewhere along the way, the unwritten rules had changed, or it seemed like it. Perhaps it was only that Authority seemed restive these days, like cattle before a storm.

  Her mind snapped to attention. That last thought was surely not in line with proper thought.

  Chastened, Julia pulled out her Informer, and looked up the currently recommended cattle taming song. It was, she was relieved to find, the one she'd been singing. She resumed singing, this time with a calmer spirit. It was no good being right by accident. It was better to know.

  After his Lesson, Renzo pulled off his boots and lay on the bed, to warm up under several layers of blankets. None of the blankets was new, or clean, or soft, or beautiful. Renzo had seen beautiful quilts, in a museum. Images of those quilts flitted into his mind, unbidden. He chased them away. As the curator had explained, past generations had made the mistake of surrounding themselves with false beauty, which distracted them from Purpose, as well as from True Beauty, which was found only in a perfected Society.

  Renzo's mind, freshly washed from time spent with the Judge, latched onto the curator's instruction, and held on for dear life. The concept of beautiful objects being intrinsically evil because they distracted from more important things didn't make sense to him, but it was Correct Thought, and so he tried to accept it.

  Acceptance didn't seem to be working all that well, though. He switched gears, and tried to recall his sins against History and Order, so he could repent of them.

  The photographs came to mind immediately. The odd rooms, ornate but orderly. The condemned man's garb. There was beauty there. And in the transportation devices, too.

  Renzo clenched his jaw. He had meant to repent of his sins, not take pleasure in them.

  Besides, he was dodging the main point. He had suffered thought contamination, but had not immediately destroyed the offending material.

  He thought about getting the note and the pictures, and burning them. But he was just starting to get
a bit of warmth built up under the blankets. Besides, if he was going to burn something, it might as well be at supper time, when he had to bustle around anyway, he thought.

  His bed was situated where he could see a patch of sky out a grimy window. There seemed to be another storm rolling in.

  He'd done his required reportable work for the day. He was cold. There was no reason to get up and get colder, not for a while yet. He rolled onto his side, pulled the blankets close, and went to sleep.

  Julia looked at the sky with dismay.

  She checked the weather report. As usual, it didn't match what she saw. She no longer really expected it to, both from experience and from having found out that the reports were from a weather station nearly a hundred miles away; this had been deemed good enough, given that the region had been depopulated except for herders and government biologists. But, still, the yearning for the reports to be true, for the predictions that went with them to be useful, was reluctant to die. She refreshed her Informer, hoping against hope for data that made sense. The weather report was still wildly inaccurate.

  She looked at the remaining hay stacked near the hut, calculating how long it would last. She looked at her miserable cattle, already thin from battling a worse than usual winter.