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She skipped ? No There was a sudden hush in the crowd, and he knew that the entire cohteen to Twenty, leaving a gap On his right, Pierre, with a startled look, rose froe

A mistake She ht, that she hadn't The Chief Elder made no mistakes Not at the Ceremony of Twelve

He felt dizzy, and couldn't focus his attention He didn't hear what Assignment Pierre received, and was only di his new badge Then: Twenty-one Twenty-two

The numbers continued in order Jonas sat, dazed, as theythe end Each time, at each announcehts Perhaps now she would call his naotten his own nu in the seat marked Nineteen

But she had skipped hilance at him, embarrassed, and then avert their eyes quickly He saorried look on the face of his group leader

He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist He didn't dare to turn and find his parents in the crowd He couldn't bear to see their faces darkened with shah his ?

8

The audience was clearly ill at ease They applauded at the final Assigner a crescendo of united enthusiasm There were ether, clapping, but it was an autoesture that he wasn't even aware of His mind had shut out all of the earlier emotions: the anticipation, excitement, pride, and even the happy kinship with his friends Now he felt only humiliation and terror

The Chief Elder waited until the uneasy applause subsided Then she spoke again

"I know," she said in her vibrant, gracious voice, "that you are all concerned That you feel I have made a mistake"

She shtly by her benign statement, seemed to breathe more easily It was very silent

Jonas looked up

"I have caused you anxiety," she said "I apologize to my community" Her voice flowed over the assey," they all uttered together

"Jonas," she said, looking down at hiuish"

"I accept your apology," Jonas replied shakily

"Please co in his oelling, he had practiced the kind of jaunty, self-assured walk that he hoped he could otten now He sihted and cluo forward, up the steps and across the platforly she placed her arm across his tense shoulders

"Jonas has not been assigned," she informed the crowd, and his heart sank

Then she went on "Jonas has been selected"

He blinked What did thatstir from the audience They, too, were puzzled

In a fir voice she announced, "Jonas has been selected to be our next Receiver of Measp--the sudden intake of breath, drawn sharply in astonishment, by each of the seated citizens He saw their faces; the eyes widened in awe

And still he did not understand

"Such a selection is very, very rare," the Chief Elder told the audience "Our community has only one Receiver It is he who trains his successor

"We have had our current Receiver for a very long time," she went on Jonas followed her eyes and saw that she was looking at one of the Elders The Coroup; and the Chief Elder's eyes were now on one who sat in the midst but seemed oddly separate from them It was a man Jonas had never noticed before, a beardedJonas intently

"We failed in our last selection," the Chief Elder said soleo, when Jonas was just a toddler I will not dwell on the experience because it causes us all terrible disco to, but he could sense the discomfort of the audience They shifted uneasily in their seats

"We have not been hasty this time," she continued "We could not afford another failure"

"Sohter tone, relaxing the tension in the Auditoriun observations Soht not develop, through training, every attribute necessary Elevens are still children, after all What we observe as playfulness and patience--the requirements to become Nurturer--could, with maturity, be revealed as simply foolishness and indolence So we continue to observe during training, and to modify behavior when necessary

"But the Receiver-in-training cannot be observed, cannot be modified That is stated quite clearly in the rules He is to be alone, apart, while he is prepared by the current Receiver for the job which is the most honored in our community"

Alone? Apart? Jonas listened with increasing unease

"Therefore the selection must be sound It must be a unanimous choice of the Co the process, an Elder reports a dream of uncertainty, that dream has the power to set a candidate aside instantly

"Jonas was identified as a possible Receiver o We have observed him meticulously There were no dreams of uncertainty

"He has shown all of the qualities that a Receiver must have"

With her hand still firmly on his shoulder, the Chief Elder listed the qualities