T'hough we all still sleep under the same roof, it took only four days for the House to dissolve into four tribes. Antonia, apparently the scion of a family that owns a sizable asteroid belt, gets the midDrafters: the talkers, the whiners, the brains the dependents, the wimps, the snobs, and the Politicos. Titus draws mostly highDrafts or midDrafts -the physical specimens, the violent, the fast, the intrepid, the prototypically intelligent, the ambitious, the opportunists, the obvious selec- tion for House Mars. The prodigy pianist, quiet Cassandra, is his. So is raspy Pollux and the psy- chotic Vixus, who shivers with pleasure at the mere idea of putting metal into flesh. If Cassius and I had been more political, we might have managed to steal the highDrafts from Titus. Hell, we might have had everyone ready to follow if we just told them they had to obey. After all, Cassius and I were the strongest for a brief moment, but then we gave Titus time to intimidate and Antonia time to manipulate "Damned Antonia,"' I say. Cassius laughs and shakes his golden head as we bound east along the highlands in search of more hidden caches of supplies. My long legs can cover a kilometer in just over a minute "Oh, you come to expect these things from her. If our families hadn't spent holidays together when we were little things, I might have called her out as a demokrat on the first day. But she's hardly that. More like Caesar or ... what did they call them, Presidents?- -a tyrant in necessity's clothing." "She's a turd in the swillbowl," I say. "What the gory slag does that mean?" Cassius laughs. Uncle Narol could have told him. "Sorry? Oh. Heard it in Yorkton once from a highRed. Means she's a fly in the wine." "A highRed?" Cassius snorts. "One of my nan- nies was a highRed. I know. Odd. Should have been a Brown. But the woman would tell me sto- ries as I tried to go to sleep." "That's nice," I say. "I thought her an uppity bugger. Tried to tell Mother to make her shut up and leave me alone, because all she wanted to do was talk about vales and dreary romances that always end in some sort of sadness. Depressing creature." "What did your mother do when you com- plained?" "Mother? Ha! She clapped me on the head and said there's always something to learn from any- body. Even a highRed. She and Father like to pretend they're progressives. Confuses me." He shakes his head. "But Yorkton. Julian couldn't be- lieve you were from Yorkton." The darkness returns in me. Even thinking of Eo doesn't dispel it. Even thinking of my noble mission and all the license it gives me doesn't banish the guilt. I'm the only one who shouldn't feel guilty for the Passage, yet besides Roque, I think I am the only one who does. I look at my hands and remember Julian's blood. Cassius points up suddenly to the sky south- west of us. "What the gory hell?" Dozens of blinking medBots pour from floating Olympus's castle. We hear their distant whine. Proctors flicker after them like flaming arrows toward the distant southern mountains. What- ever has happened, one thing is certain: chaos reigns in the South Although my tribe continues to sleep in the castle, we've moved from the high tower to the gatehouse so we don't have to rub shoulders with Titus's lot. To keep safe, we leave our cook- ing a secret We meet our tribe for supper by a loch in the northern highlands. They are not all high- Drafts. We have some Cassius and Roque. But then no one above seventeenth pick. We've some midDrafts- Quinn and Lea- but the rest are the dregs, the lowDrafts- Clown, Screwface, Weed, Pebble, and Thistle. This bothers Cassius even though the dregs of the Institute are still certifi- ably superhuman compared with the rest of the Colors. They are athletic. They are resilient. They never ask you to repeat yourself unless they are making a point. And they accept my orders, even anticipating what next Ill ask them to do. I credit their less privileged upbringings. Most are smarter than I. But I have that unique thing they call slangsmarts, proven by my high score in the extrapolational intelligence test. Not that it matters, I have sulfur matches and that makes me the god Prometheus. Neither Antonia nor Titus have fire as far as I know. So I'm the only one who can fill bellies. I make each of my tribe kill goats or sheep. No one is allowed to freeload, even though Screwface tries his best. They don't notice my hands trembling when I cut my first goat's throat with a knife. There's so much trust in the beast's eyes, followed by confusion as it dies, still thinking me its friend.
