I am watching the operation. Makemin stands in the middle of all the activity, pivoting in place, calling out orders, and pointing, knuckles of his left hand rest on the back of his hip. From time to time his assistant, a small, unflappable, owl-faced blue man named Nikhinoch, will walk up to him, moving with dispatch but never with haste, receive some order or other, and walk away in the same manner to relay his master’s words or carry out some not unimportant task. The men are shouting and murmuring; I hear bellicose talk without getting more than a vague sense of its meaning, and my spirit sickens. Up to now I’d been grateful Tref is not what could be called a boisterous city; the lifers are too clean and the embalming students, for all their wildness, are too ghastly. I’d always looked on bellowing, back-thumping men and their drinking ways and braying heartiness with a combination of fear and disdain. In the mountains, you don’t raise your voice idly. You don’t want to whoop it up.

It’s time for me to change. I pull up the flap and enclose myself in the narrow tent. My uniform exhibits a strong disinclination to abandon its square packeted shape. All a nameless straw color, like pale mud puddle. After a moment’s reflection, I divest myself of my school clothes and begin putting on my uniform; I’m going through with it. The shirt is surprisingly comfortable. Pulling the collar to around my neck I find I haven’t the slightest inclination to scratch there. Good. Bit loose, better than a bit tight. The stockings are thick. I suppose that’s good, although they are a little too warm. The corduroy trousers are ungainly in my hands, flapping and dangling around like a dead albatross. Good inch of extra room between my waist and the band—I’ll need that belt. Buttons tightly to the leg from the knee to the ankle. Silly looking. Next there’s this vest I don’t know why I have, double breasted with peg-and-loop buttons. Over that, the jacket, with thick cookie-like buttons and pockets everywhere, and a belt built in. The boots are a disgrace. They’re flimsy and crumbling, with hardly any soles to speak of. I flip them into the corner. The shoes I came with are excellent, and despite my failure even to shine them once and a while, they gleam like new, without so much as a scuff. I’ll keep them and hope nobody notices.