“If it comes out of my mouth, it’s my voice,” said Rigg.
“But the coarse country boy from upriver, with the ribald jokes and funny tales of country life—how can you say he’s the same as the boy who speaks in such a lofty style that he withers most of the courtiers with his wit?”
“Do I?” said Rigg. “I don’t recall inflicting any injuries.”
“When everyone laughs at them, they’re destroyed,” said Long. “And you’ve ruined several who haven’t dared come back.”
“And does anyone miss them?”
Long laughed.
“A hunter who carries only one weapon has already decided that all the animals it can’t reach are sa
fe from him.”
“So you have the weapons of country wit and courtly wit?” asked Long.
“Let’s say—half of each.”
“A double halfwit is a wit, I think,” said Long.
“And now you’ve entered the fray!” cried Rigg, and the two of them tussled in the kitchen garden for a few moments, then remembered their errands and got back to work without waiting for someone to yell at them.
It was a week before the answer came. Flacommo announced it at dinner.
“Young Rigg,” said their host. “I have pled your cause before the Revolutionary Council, and they have decided that it’s too much bother for the librarians to have to answer your endless requests and send books back and forth.”
Rigg did not let himself feel disappointed, because the way Flacommo was talking, it was plain that he was only pretending to be doleful—he had good news.
“Instead, if a panel of scholars pronounces you worthy to be numbered as one of them, you will be allowed to travel, under escort, to and from the library once a day—though you may stay there as long as you want, or until supper.”
Rigg leapt to his feet and let out a boyish, privick, unprincely hoot of happiness. Everyone laughed, even Mother.
CHAPTER 17
Scholar
“Our mandate,” said the expendable, “is to serve no individual human being at the expense of the species, but rather to preserve and advance the human species, even if at the expense of a cost-effective number of individuals.”
“Cost-effective,” echoed Ram. “I wonder how you determine the cost of a human life.”
“Equally,” said the expendable.
“Equally to what?”
“Any other human being.”
“So you can kill one to save two.”
“Or a billion in order to bring to pass circumstances that will bring about the births of a billion and one.”
“It sounds rather cold.”
“We are cold,” said the expendable. “But raw numbers hardly tell our whole mandate.”
“I am eager to know,” said Ram, “on what besides numbers you judge the preservation and advancement of the human species.”
“Whatever enhances the ability of the human race to survive in the face of threats.”