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Ruc put down his feeder and juainst the bare milk-white wall

He shouted, "I reritty mumble of men at lunch died somewhat Eyes met his out of faces indifferently clean and indifferently shaven, glistening and white in the ireat interest, merely the reflex attention enforced by any sudden and unexpected cry

Rik cried again, "I remember my job I had a job!"

Someone called, "Shoddop!" and someone else yelled, "Siddown!"

The faces turned away, thethe table He heard the reer spiral at ato him None of it reached his ain he clutched his feeder, a spoonlike affair, with sharp edges and little tines projecting from the front curve of the bohich could therefore with equal cluh for aat his number on the back of the handle He didn&039;t have to see it He knew it by heart All the others had registration numbers, just as he had, but the others had names also He didn&039;t They called hi of the kyrt h they called him "Crazy Rik"

But perhaps he would be re more and more now This was the first time since he had come to the mill that he had

Rik was stirred by the o to the fields, Lona"

"It&039;s late"

"Please Just outside town"

She fumbled at the thin money pouch she kept between herself and the soft blue leather belt she wore, the only luxury of dress she allowed herself

Rik caught her arhway for the winding, dustless, packed-sand roads half an hour later There was a heavy silence between the at her She had no words to express her feelings for him, so she had never tried

What if he should leave her? He was a little fellow, no taller than herself and weighing somewhat less, in fact He was still like a helpless child in many ways But before they had turned his mind off he must have been an educated man A very important educated man

Valona had never had any education besides reading and writing and enough trade-school technology to be able to handle h to know that all people were not so lie was so helpful to all of them Occasionally Squires came on inspection tours She had never seen them close up but once, on a holiday, she had visited the City and seen a group of incredibly -gorgeous creatures at a distance Occasionally the millworkers were allowed to listen to what educated people sounded like They spoke differently, er words and softer tones Rik talked like that more and htened at his first words They ca over a headache They were pronounced queerly When she tried to correct hie

Even then she had been afraid that he ht remember too much and then leave her She was only Valona March They called her Big Lona She had never irl ork-reddened hands like herself could never marry She had never been able to do more than

look at the boys with dunored her at the idle-day dinner festivals She was too big to giggle and smirk at them

She would never have a baby to cuddle and hold The other girls did, one after the other, and she could only crowd about for a quick gli red and hairless with screwed-up eyes, fists iummy mouth- "It&039;s your turn next, Lona"

"When will you have a baby, Lona?"

She could only turn away

But when Rik had come, he was like a baby He had to be fed and taken care of, brought out into the sun, soothed to sleep when the headaches racked hi They would yell, "Lona&039;s got a boy friend Big Lona&039;s got a crazy boy friend Lona&039;s boy friend is a rik"

Later on, when Rik could walk by himself (she had been as proud the day he took his first step as though he were really only one year old, instead of more like thirty-one) and stepped out, unescorted, into the village streets, they had run about hihter and foolish ridicule in order to see a grownbut whi out of the house, shouting at therown men feared those fists She had felled her section head with a single wild blow the first day she had brought Rik to work at thethem which she overheard The mill council fined her a week&039;s pay for that incident, and ht have sent her to the City for further trial at the Squire&039;s court, but for the Townman&039;s intervention and the plea that there had been provocation

So she wanted to stop Rik&039;s re to offer him; it was selfish of her to want him to stay mind-blank and helpless forever It was just that no one had ever before depended upon her so utterly It was just that she dreaded a return to loneliness

She said, "Are you sure you remember, Rik?"

"Yes"

They stopped there in the fields, with the sun adding its red dening blaze to all that surrounded the up, and the checkerboard irrigation canals were already beginning to purple

He said, "I can trust my memories as they come back, Lona You know I can You didn&039;t teach me to speak, for instance I remembered the words myself Didn&039;t I? Didn&039;t I?"

She said reluctantly, "Yes"

"I even remember the times you took me out into the fields before I could speak I keep res all the tiht a kyrt fly for me You held it closed in your hands and made me put my eye to the space between your thue in the darkness I laughed and tried to force et it, so that it fleay and leftafter all I didn&039;t knoas a kyrt fly then, or anything about it, but it&039;s all very clear to me now You never told me about that, did you, Lona?"

She shook her head

"But it did happen, didn&039;t it? I remember the truth, don&039;t I?"

"Yes, Rik"

"And now I re about myself from before There must have been a before, Lona"

There ht on her heart when she thought that It was a different before, nothing like the now they lived in It had been on a different world She knew that because one word he had never remembered was kyrt She had to teach him the word for the most important object on all the world of Florina

"What is it you remember?" she asked

At this, Rik&039;s excite back "It doesn&039;t make much sense, Lona It&039;s just that I had a job once, and I knohat it was At least, in a way"

"What was it?"

"I analyzed Nothing"

She turned sharply upon hi into his eyes For a moment she put the flat of her hand upon his forehead, until he moved away irritably She said, "You don&039;t have a headache again, Rik, have you? You haven&039;t had one in weeks"

"I&039; me"

Her eyes fell, and he added at once, "I don&039;t mean that you bother me, Lona It&039;s just that I feel fine and I don&039;t want you to worry"

She brightened "What does &039;analyzed&039; mean?" He kneords she didn&039;t She felt very huht of how educated he ht a moment "It means-it means &039;to take apart&039; You know, like ould take apart a sorter to find out why the scanning beanment"

"Oh But, Rik, how can anyone have a job not analyzing anything? That&039;s not a job"

"I didn&039;t say I didn&039;t analyze anything I said I analyzed Nothing With a capital N"