“Shall we take him into the nursery full-time, then, Palat?”

“Yes. I’ll be moving back into a dorm.”

“Don’t worry, he knows us all here! But surely Divlab will send you along after Rulag soon? Since you’re partners, and both engineers?”

“Yes, but she’s… It’s the Central Institute of Engineering that wants her, see. I’m not that good. Rulag has a great work to do.”

The matron nodded, and sighed. “Even so—!” she said with energy, and did not say anything else.

The father’s gaze was on the knobby infant, who had not noticed his presence in the anteroom, being preoccupied with light. The fat infant was at this moment coming towards the knobby one rapidly, though with a peculiar squatting gait caused by a damp and sagging diaper. He approached out of boredom or sociability, but once in the square of sunlight he discovered it was warm there. He sat down heavily beside the knobby one, crowding him into the shade.

The knobby one’s blank rapture gave place at once to a scowl of rage. He pushed the fat one, shouting, “Go ‘way!”

The matron was there at once. She righted the fat one. “Shev, you aren’t to push other people.”

The knobby baby stood up. His face was a glare of sunlight and anger. His diapers were about to fall off. “Mine!” he said in a high, ringing voice. “Mine sun!”

“It is not yours,” the one-eyed woman said with the mildness of utter certainty. “Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it.” And she picked the knobby baby up with gentle inexorable hands and set him aside, out of the square of sunlight.

The fat baby sat staring, indifferent. The knobby one shook all over, screamed, “Mine sun!” and burst into tears of rage.

The father picked him up and held him. “There, now, Shev,” he said. “Come on, you know you can’t have things. What’s wrong with you?” His voice was soft, and shook as if he also was not far from tears. The thin, long, light child in his arms wept passionately.

“There are some just can’t take life easy,” the one-eyed woman said, watching with sympathy.

“I’ll take him for a dorm visit now. The mother’s leaving tonight, you see.”

“Go on. I hope you get posted together soon,” said the matron, hoisting the fat child like a sack of grain onto her hip, her face melancholy and her good eye squinting. “Byebye, Shev, little heart. Tomorrow, listen, tomorrow we’ll play truck-and-driver.”

The baby did not forgive her yet. He sobbed, clutching his father’s neck, and hid his face in the darkness of the lost sun.

• • •

The orchestra needed all the benches that morning for rehearsal, and the dance group was thumping around in the big room of the learning center, so the kids who were working on Speaking-and-Listening sat in a circle on the foamstone floor of the workshop. The first volunteer, a lanky eighty-year-old with long hands and feet, stood up. He stood very erect, as healthy children do; his slightly fuzzy face was pale at first, then turned red as he waited for the other children to listen. “Go on, Shevek,” the group director said.