Marek Huberath: Nest of Worlds

Silent the whole way, and now he has to chatter, Gavein thought with annoyance but gave a nod. This was the first time for him. Boarding the plane, he had managed to count as many as ten engines, five on either side. Three on the wing blades, two by the hull. The engines by the hull were jets, and their noise was deafening. Apparently there was an advantage to combining jets and propellers. He had read something about that in a newspaper.

It was freezing. Winters in Davabel were as severe as in Lavath. The whole long trip was a haze in his memory now, a time without events, a semiconscious enduring. The roar of the engines had crushed remembering.

“Unbuckle your safety belts, please. You can leave the plane,” crackled the loudspeaker. Weak orange lights came on. Gavein unbuckled the metal shell of his seat and pulled his burlap bag out from under it. Not many possessions there for the next thirty-five years of his life. He pulled his shoes on feet swollen from so many hours without movement.

Patiently he waited on line to exit. The frozen surface of the airfield in Davabel gleamed like glass under the night sky. Only the landing strip was black. Behind a protective metal mesh, the pilot’s cabin now blazed with light: the crew was preparing for the return flight.

In the distance stood the dark terminal building. The passengers had to walk there, carrying their suitcases and backpacks. Everyone went very slowly. Some slipped and fell; the retireds regained their feet with difficulty. Women sobbed, trying to get up from the ice. Gavein managed all right, slipping only once, not seriously, and his backpack cushioned the fall.

Inside the terminal, the first thing he saw was a clock: a massive black sphere attached to the end of a curved metal pipe that hung from the ceiling. The clock’s time differed only thirty-two minutes from what the pilot had said; so they had arrived pretty much on schedule.

He got in line with the others. The official stood at his station like a cashier at a supermarket. Finally Gavein’s turn came. The man in uniform glanced at the passport, then looked at Gavein carefully.

“Gavein Throzz?”

Gavein nodded yes; he was drowsy.

The man stamped a large rectangle by the exit visa from Lavath. “You’ll receive a resident visa for thirty-five years. When that period is up, you proceed to Ayrrah,” he said. It was a formula. “Please go to decoding. That window over there.” He pointed.

Window 16 had a computer with a heavy metal keyboard in an armored box. The finish was worn away at the places where fingers touched the most. The official at this window was a young woman with flaming red hair. Her complexion was so fair it gave her face the look of a white cat, the kind with a pink nose and pink lips, except that someone had put a red wig on it.

She was a living placard for Davabel: Equal Rights for Reds. The thought amused him.

“Your passport, please,” she ordered. Perhaps he had looked at her disrespectfully. He hadn’t intended to insult her—but old habits die hard. In Lavath, no one took redheads seriously.

“Gavein Throzz?… A peculiar name.” She had a piping voice, too high. “I’ll simply call you Dave, all right?”

“Gavein is an old, traditional name in Lavath. It has no short form, whereas Dave comes from David. You can say Throzz, if my first name is a problem.”

“We rarely use last names here, or titles, as you do in Lavath,” she said. “Let’s forget about Gavein. I’ll put Dave down for you. And?”

“What do you mean, and?”

“Your real name, of course, your Significant Name,” she insisted, but avoiding his eyes.

“The law of Lavath, and, to the best of my knowledge, the law of Davabel, too, guarantees privacy… limits the making public of Names,” Gavein replied stiffly.

“You invoke that legality?” She gave him a sardonic look. She had pretty blue-green eyes (like those of a white cat).

Not waiting for his answer, she fed his passport into the slot of the reader.

“You weren’t afraid to take a plane?” she asked, cocking her head with mock surprise. That she could do. She hadn’t actually said his Name. “I would never fly… I wouldn’t have your nerve.” Letting him know, by this, that her Significant Name was the same as his.

He said nothing.

She’s waiting for me to make a date with her after work, he thought.

“We have to confirm the information on your passport,” she said finally.

She left her place to enter something into the passport at another computer. She was short and fine-boned. She’s showing off her figure, he thought, because she didn’t need to leave her desk. She wore a black tunic and green slacks that narrowed to polished boots. Epaulets. And a badge indicating the terminal authority.

Gavein took his passport back casually and moved ahead in the line. The customs officer had a large face, a square jaw, and huge hands in rubber gloves. He emptied the entire contents of Gavein’s bag on a counter; he found crackers, two apples, tea bags. All these he put in a plastic envelope.

“You’ll get a receipt. Bringing in food and animals is not permitted. You understand: bacteria, mold… they spread, and we must protect our country.”

Gavein stuffed his few possessions back into the bag.

The officer told Gavein to hurry; he was holding up the line. “Next window, currency,” he said.

The cashier said, “When you leave this building, your Lavath money will be worthless. It must be returned by way of Ayrrah and Llanaig.”

Gavein obediently took out his canvas wallet and produced a thick roll of worn, green banknotes. They gave off an unpleasant smell.

“The money stinks,” observed the cashier pleasantly. “Like rancid butter, when there’s a lot of it.”

“The smell is from all the hands that held it, from their sweat,” said Gavein. “There’s two million here.”

The official counted it methodically. Every now and then he dipped his fingers in a disinfecting fluid.

“Correct. That’ll be 9,617 packets,” he said and counted out a smaller pile of different bills. The color was the same.

“Where next?” Gavein asked. This was the last window. The person behind him was bringing out his foul savings.

“The Office of Hierarchy and Classification. Room 12. The window on the left.” The cashier pointed.

This official was also dark-haired. He reached for Gavein’s passport.

“Relatively few adults coming from Lavath. It might be a demographic dip…,” he mumbled. “Do you know that eight transports ago we even had a geront? Quite a rarity. He was black, of course.”

The official subjected Gavein’s hair and face to close scrutiny. “Excellent. I can certify that you are black. There is no doubt about it. We won’t need the commission to vote on it.”

“In strong light, there’s a reddish tint to my hair,” Gavein said, confident of his appearance. “And my eyes are light… grayish.”

The official looked him over one more time.

“False modesty,” he said. “You’re within the norm. I’m classifying you black. You get the highest Lavath rating, a three.” At the same time he stamped a large B in a special column.

“You are allowed to darken your hair,” he informed Gavein. “Many reds, can you imagine, dye their hair. They have no shame.”

The official kept talking as he filled out forms.

“In Davabel, reds are required by law to have at least a two-inch strip of natural hair on the crown of their head. Grays—not to mention whites—may not dye their hair at all; for them it’s a punishable offense.”

“We have different rules,” Gavein said. “Is this resocialization? In Davabel you seem to be conducting a kind of racial resocialization.”