“Well, thank goodness! I began to wonder.” He smiled down at her and then went on seriously. “Our chief tool has been Extrasensory Perception. The Ark was deliberately populated with a high Esper population. We have been working to strengthen the Web ever since - to complete the Great Pattern in which humankind's virtues will work so strongly that they can overcome the weaknesses of greed, avarice, anger, envy, all the faults that led to the Age of Confusion. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course, Warden. I've studied City History for

eight years.”

“My apologies. I had forgotten how nearly grown up you were. “

She shot a suspicious glance at him. Was he laughing at her? His mouth was serious, but his grey eyes twinkled. He went on. “Knowing our history and what we are trying to achieve, can you not see that to throw away a precious human being, to discard someone just because she does not fit the pattern, would be to deny everything that we say we believe in?”

“But if I choose to go,” she said at last. “Then it wouldn't be your fault, would it?”

He shook his head. “That argument won't work. If we had made you so unhappy that life here wasn't worth living, that it made more sense to you to walk out into the wilderness ... ''

“Then what am I going to do? It's all so hopeless.”

''It's never hopeless. Don't even think that. Go on with your growing up. We'll help you all we can. I'll speak to Teacher Jonson. Perhaps your classmates ...?''

“Oh no. Please not.'' To be known as the Warden's pct would be worse than anything.

“Very well. Off you go, my dear. It must be past your bedtime.”

“Then ... you're not going to send me to the Hole?”

“The ...? Oh, gracious me, no. Whatever put that idea into your head. Off you go and stop worrying so much about yourself.”

WHICH WAS easy enough to say, thought Ruth, lying in the Grade Eight C dormitory, listening to the sleepers' breathing and the soft whisper of the air conditioner. She fell asleep at last and dreamed the clearest dream she had ever had. When she woke at the bell it was to a sense that the dormitory, the showers, the crowded dining room were all much less real than the world of her dream.

During art class they were supposed to paint a subconscious impression of their relationship to the Web. Dreamily Ruth mixed green paints and washed in on her paper the impression of a field, with trees in the background of a darker colour, smoky and mysterious. Between the trees slanted sunlight, gold, dusty. That was almost impossible to get right. She painted on, her tongue between her teeth.