It’s not good to hang around like this. Somebody might notice and report you. A bored Black Mark, walking past, might knock your head in. Yet I’m transfixed when the broadcasts start up; it’s like being hypnotised. What will they say next?

“Cerels, you are of inferior blood, you must not taint those of superior breeding by mingling with them …”

An inferior people, that’s what the Director called us at the beginning of his reign, but still useful – for keeping the factories going and doing all the dirty jobs that the Travesters don’t want to do, like emptying latrines and cleaning out drains. Long ago, the Cerels were nomadic, before settling down in Ursa, and sometime later the Travesters arrived in greater numbers and took control of the area. How does that make them better? As for being Cerel, it’s no fun being a second-rate person. Pigs are treated better.

I can feel the heat rising into my face. “I hate them,” I spit out.

“Shut up,” says Bit. We’re in public: anybody might hear. It’s enough to get you killed. I don’t care so much, but Bit is nervous about such things. He’s always been a scaredy-cat, jumping at his own shadow. We’ve known each other forever, and I’m the one who wants to have adventures, to roam the city at night while he stays at home with his mother. Maybe it’s a country thing. After all, he’s not a native to Ursa.

We set off again, and I’m shaking my head as if to slough off the broadcast. If I could live anywhere else, even some godsforsaken dump at the edge of the known world, I would.

Bit has to get some greens from the market, so I head home.

I always approach our building with care, glancing behind to see if I’m being followed or watched. There is a thin door, unpainted, between two tall buildings, and that’s all. It’s a door the Black Marks walk past every day. I suppose they know about the tenements – how can they not? – and they obviously know about the Cerel population within the city, but what isn’t obvious or flaunted, they tend to leave alone. Mostly. Even that you can’t predict or take for granted. Like an adder, the Black Marks can strike at any time.