“It doesn’t get bread into people’s mouths.”

“I just spent six decads helping to do that. When I’m called again, I’ll go again. Meanwhile I stick by my trade. If there’s physics to be done, I claim the right to do it.”

“What you have to face is the fact that at this point there is no physics to be done. Not the kind you do. We’ve got to gear to practicality.” Sabul shifted in his chair. He looked sullen and uneasy. “We’ve had to release five people for reposting. I’m sorry to say that you’re one of them. There it is.”

“Just where I thought it was,” Shevek said, though in fact he had not till that moment realized that Sabul was kicking him out of the Institute. As soon as he heard it, however, it seemed familiar news; and he would not give Sabul the satisfaction of seeing him shaken.

“What worked against you was a combination of things. The abstruse, irrelevant nature of the research you’ve done these last several years. Plus a certain feeling, not necessarily justified, but existing among many student and teaching members of the Institute, that both your teaching and your behavior reflect a certain disaffection, a degree of privatism, of nonaltruism. This was spoken of in meeting. I spoke for you, of course. But I’m only one syndic among many.”

“Since when was altruism an Odonian virtue?” Shevek said. “Well, never mind. I see what you mean.” He stood up. He could not keep seated any longer, but otherwise had himself in control, and spoke perfectly naturally. “I take it you didn’t recommend me for a teaching post elsewhere.”

“What would have been the use?” said Sabul, almost melodious in self-exculpation. “No one’s taking on new teachers. Teachers and students are working side by side at famine-prevention jobs all over the planet. Of course, this crisis won’t last. In a year or so we’ll be looking back on it, proud of the sacrifices we made and the work we did, standing by each other, share and share alike. But right now…”

Shevek stood erect, relaxed, gazing out the small, scratched window at the blank sky. There was a mighty desire in him to tell Sabul, finally, to go to hell. But it was a different and profounder impulse that found words. “Actually,” he said, “you’re probably right.” With that he nodded to Sabul and left.

He caught an omnibus downtown. He was still in a hurry, driven. He was following a pattern and wanted to come to the end of it, come to rest. He went to the Division of Labor Central Posting offices to request a posting to the community to which Takver had gone.

Divlab, with its computers and its huge task of coordination, occupied a whole square; its buildings were handsome, imposing by Anarresti standards with fine plain lines. Inside Central Posting was high-ceilinged and barnlike, very full of people and activity, the walls covered with posting notices and directions as to which desk or department to go to for this business or that. As Shevek waited in one of the lines he listened to the people in front of him, a boy of sixteen and a man in his sixties. The boy was volunteering for a famine prevention posting. He was full of noble feelings, spilling over with brotherhood, adventurousness, hope. He was delighted to be going off on his own, leaving his childhood behind. He talked a great deal, like a child, in a voice not yet used to its deeper tones. Freedom, freedom! rang in his excited talk, in every word; and the old man’s voice grumbled and rumbled through it, teasing but not threatening, mocking but not cautioning. Freedom, the ability to go somewhere and do something, freedom was what the old man praised and cherished in the young one, even while he mocked his self-importance. Shevek listened to them with pleasure. They broke the morning’s series of grotesques.