He thought again of the ‘black’ section where he had spent some months after the murder of Meng had been discovered. The police, called in by the estate manager, had surrounded the wired village and searched all the houses and questioned the tappers. Finally they’d taken half of them away. Some information must have leaked out, for Big Dog Tsou had been taken along with the innocent others. Then a few had been released, and again Big Dog Tsou wondered how the selection had been made; it seemed so random. For instance, the girl who collected subscriptions and had whipped the tarpaulin off the body of Meng, had been released, and now she had gone Inside. But Neo and his family had been taken, and Big Dog Tsou laughed to himself, well pleased that Neo the surly and the silent, so grudging in his subscriptions to the Organization, should have been put with the ‘blacks’, and be still among the ‘blacks’, and probably never come out from the ‘black’ section. ‘His brain,’ thought Big Dog Tsou, ‘does not turn on itself quickly enough.’ Big Dog Tsou’s brain turned very quickly. It had taken him little time to find that all his jailers wanted was his servility. That was the key to freedom, there was no other. Big Dog Tsou knew himself to be a valuable member of the Movement. There was no gain in defiancé. Wheedling, gentle, meek, submissive, Big Dog Tsou worked his way from ‘black’ to ‘grey’, and ‘grey’ to ‘white’. He rediscovered his craft as a tailor, for he had been a tailor’s apprentice in his youth and for a time had made uniforms for the People Inside.

Invaluable now this art, for here he was outside the third wire fence, within the bungalow of the Commandant himself, the great white tuan, the eyes and ears of his heart well open, and making clothes for the mems of the rulers.

He could not help laughing, as he cut along the silk, laughter curling out of him in little hiccups.

‘Tailor! Where are you, tailor?’ It was Mem Hinchcliffe calling.

‘Coming, Mem, coming!’ Big Dog Tsou called back.

Bowing, smiling, cheerful, Big Dog Tsou sped out of the workroom to greet yet another white Mem, her arms carrying lengths of cottons and silks for frocks.

*  *  *

Hunger was painless desire, impotent need mounting as the heat steam mounted and danced in the endless vistas of the rubber jungle. It was thirst, however, which had terrorized Neo and his children. Thirst was not of the mouth, but of the whole body, a twisting of the entrails and a burning upwards into the mouth. Thirst made images dance like fountains spraying clear and delicate drops. Above the eyes a clamp, and giddy gold-black spots running softly round and round. Thirst was a terrible treacherous enemy, for ever waiting behind one to turn the undrinkable white milk of latex which rained into the pails into delicious water.