at intervals by great iron pipes, and out of these pipes issued grey water, sometimes at a trickle, sometimes at a gush.
‘Drains,’ said the Chief Examiner. ‘Sewers. Not beautiful, but necessary.’
Instinctively, both Kestrel and her father raised their hands to cover their noses against the stench.
‘You think, young lady, that if you do as you please, and make no effort at school, you and your family will go down from Orange to Maroon. You think you don’t mind that. Perhaps you will go down again, from Maroon to Grey. You think you don’t mind that, either. Grey District isn’t pretty, or comfortable, but it’s the bottom, and at least they’ll leave you alone there. That’s what you think, isn’t it? The worst that can happen is we’ll go all the way down to Grey.’
‘No,’ said Kestrel, though this was exactly what she thought.
‘No? You think it could be worse?’
Kestrel said nothing.
‘You’re quite right. It could be far, far worse. After all, Grey District, poor as it is, is still part of Aramanth. But there is a world below Aramanth.’
Kestrel stared out over the murky surface of the lake. It stretched far into the distance, further than she could see. And far, far away she seemed to glimpse a glow, a pool of light, like the light that sometimes breaks through clouds on to distant hills. She fixed her gaze on this distant glow, and the stinking lake appeared to her to be almost beautiful.
‘You’re looking at the Underlake, a lake of decomposing matter that’s bigger than all Aramanth. There are islands in the lake, islands of mud. Do you see?’
They followed his pointing finger, and could just make out, far away across the slithering grey-brown surface of the lake, a group of low mounds. As they watched, they caught a movement near the mounds, and staring, half-incredulous, saw what looked like a distant figure pass over the mud, and sink abruptly out of sight. Now, their eyes attuned to the gloom, they began to spot other figures, all as uniformly dark as the mud over which they crept, slipping silently in and out of the shadows.
‘Do people live down here?’ asked Hanno.
‘They do. Many thousands. Men, women, children. Primitive, degraded people, little better than animals.’
He invited them to step closer to the railing. Directly ahead, through a gate in the rails, there projected a narrow jetty. Tethered to its timbers some twenty feet below were several long flat-bottomed barges, half-filled with refuse of every kind.
‘They live on what we throw away. They live in rubbish, and they live on rubbish.’ He turned to Kestrel. ‘You asked, What more can you do to me? Here’s your answer. Why do we strive harder? Why do we reach higher? Because we don’t want to live like this.’
Kestrel shrugged. ‘I don’t care,’ she said.
The Chief Examiner watched her closely.
‘You don’t care?’ he said slowly.
‘No.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then don’t.’
‘Prove you don’t care.’
He opened the gate in the railing and held it wide, inviting her to pass through. Kestrel looked out along the slick boards.
‘Go on. Walk right to the end. If you really don’t care.’
Kestrel took one step on to the narrow jetty, and stopped. In truth, she was frightened of the Underlake, but she was bursting inside with angry pride, and would have done anything to wipe that smooth smile from the Chief Examiner’s face. So she took another step.
‘That’s enough, Kess,’ said her father. And to the Chief Examiner, ‘You’ve made your point, Maslo. Leave her to me.’
‘We’ve left your children to you for too long, Hanno.’ He spoke evenly as always, but now there was an undertone of sharp displeasure. ‘Children follow the example given by their parents. There’s something broken inside you, my friend. There’s no fight in you any more. No will to succeed.’
Kestrel heard this, and went cold inside with fury. At once, she started to walk briskly down the jetty. She looked straight ahead, fixing her gaze on the place where the far-off light streamed down on to the dark surface of the lake, and put one foot in front of the other, and walked.
‘Kess! Come back!’ called her father.
He started after her, but Maslo Inch seized his arm with one hand, and held him in a grip of iron.
‘Let her go,’ he said. ‘She has to learn.’
With his other hand, he operated a long lever by the jetty gate, and there came a hissing gurgling sound, as the posts supporting the far end of the jetty began to sink into the lake. The jetty sloped downwards, becoming a ramp tilting ever more steeply down into the mud. Kestrel gave a cry of alarm, and turned and tried to run back up the boards, but they were coated with slime, and she couldn’t get a grip. She started to slither backwards.
‘Papa!’ she cried. ‘Help me!’
Hanno lunged towards her, pulling furiously in the Chief Examiner’s hold, but he could not free himself.
‘Let me go! What are you doing to her? Are you insane?’
Maslo Inch’s eyes were locked on to Kestrel, as she tried in vain to stop her downward slide.
‘Slipping, slipping, slipping,’ he cried. ‘Well, Kestrel, do you care now?’
‘Papa! Help me!’
‘Get her out! She’ll drown!’
‘Do you care now? Will you try harder now? Tell me! I want to hear!’
‘Papa!’ Kestrel screamed as she slithered off the end of the sloping jetty, and into the lake. Her feet hit the brown water, and with an awful sucking sound they disappeared into liquid mud.
‘I’m sinking!’
‘Tell me you care!’ called out Maslo Inch, his hand gripping Hanno’s arm so tight his fingers had gone white. ‘I want to hear!’
‘You’re mad!’ said Hanno. ‘You’ve gone mad!’
In desperation, he swung his free arm, and struck the Chief Examiner hard across the face.
Maslo Inch turned on him, and suddenly he lost all his self-control. He shook Hanno like a doll.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ he screamed. ‘You worm! You dribble! You maggot! You failure! You fail your exams, you fail your family, you fail your country!’
At the same time, Kestrel realised she wasn’t sinking any more. Somewhere beneath the surface there was hard ground, and she had only sunk to her knees. So she took hold of the sides of the narrow jetty with both hands, and began to claw her way back up. She didn’t call out any more. She just fixed her eyes on the Chief Examiner
