Calyxa regarded these fashionable young women skeptically. I suppose they seemed unserious to her. They wore sleeveless gowns, in order to display the number and prominence of the vaccination scars on their upper arms. Mrs. Comstock said that such scars were a vain self-decoration: expensive, largely useless against disease, and a danger to the recipient. This might have been true, for several of the vaccinated women were pale, or seemed feverish or unsteady in their gait. But I suppose the pursuit of fashion has always carried a price, monetary or otherwise.

Julian did not stint his introductions as he passed through the crowd. He called me an “author” or a “scribe,” and Calyxa was “Mrs. Hazzard, a vocal artist.” Those of the elite to whom we spoke were unfailingly if briefly polite toward us. We were circulating a little uneasily among this mob of cheerful Eupatridians when the President of the United States made his first appearance.

He did not enter the Receiving Room, but greeted us from a sort of balcony at the top of a staircase. Stern and well-armed Republican Guardsmen were arrayed at his back, their demeanor suggesting that they might have preferred to aim their pistols at the crowd if etiquette had not precluded that hostile act. Silence fell over the room, until every face was turned toward Deklan Conqueror.

The coins didn’t do him justice, I thought. Or perhaps it was the other way around. He was less handsome than his graven image, but somehow more imposing. It was true that he looked a little like Julian, minus the feathery yellow beard. In fact he looked the way I imagined Julian might look if he were years older and not entirely sane.

I don’t say this to demean the President. Probably he couldn’t help the way he looked. His features were not irregular; but there was something about his narrow eyes, his hawk nose, and his fixed, ingratiating grin that suggested madness. Not out-and-out lunacy, mind you, but the kind of subtle madness that dallies alongside sanity, and bides its time.

I saw Julian wince at the sight of his uncle. Mrs. Comstock drew a choked breath beside me.

The President wore a suit of formal black that suggested a uniform without actually being one. The medals pinned to his breast accentuated the effect. He saluted the crowd, smiling all the while. He expressed his greetings to his guests, and thanked them all for coming, and regretted that he couldn’t visit with them more personally, but encouraged them to enjoy themselves with refreshments. Dinner would be served before long, he said, followed by Independence Day festivities in the Main Hall, and further refreshments, and fireworks on the Great Lawn, and then he would deliver a speech. It was a proud day for the Nation, he said, and he hoped we would celebrate it vigorously and sincerely. Then he disappeared behind a purple curtain.

He wasn’t seen again until after dinner.

When we filed into the dining hall we discovered that our seats at the long tables had been assigned to us, and marked with small ornaments bearing our names. Calyxa and I sat together, but nowhere near the other members of our party. Directly across from us—an unfortunate coincidence—was Nelson Wieland, the brutal industrialist who had made such a poor impression on Calyxa outside the stables. Seated beside him was a similarly aged gentleman in silk and wool, introduced to us as Mr. Billy Palumbo. It emerged in conversation over the soup course that Mr. Palumbo was an agriculturalist. He owned several vast domains in upper New York State, where his indentured people grew pea-beans and corn for the city market.

Mr. Wieland criticized the gourd soup, which he claimed was too thick.

“Seems all right to me,” Mr. Palumbo rejoined. “I like a substantial broth. Do you care for it at all, Mrs. Hazzard?”

“I suppose it’s fine,” Calyxa said in an indifferent tone.

“More than fine,” I added. “I didn’t know a common gourd could be made so palatable, or even harvested this time of year.”

“I’ve tasted better,” said Wieland.

The discussion continued in this culinary vein throughout the meal. Boiled onions were served—undercooked, or over; we debated them. Medallions of lamb—Palumbo considered the cut too rare. Potatoes: picked young. Coffee, too strong for Mr. Wieland’s constitution. And so on.

By the time dessert was served—wintergreen ice-cream, a novelty to me—Calyxa seemed prepared to throw her portion across the table, if Palumbo and Wieland didn’t leave off the topic of food. Instead she lobbed a different kind of missile. “Do your indentured people eat this well, Mr. Palumbo?” she asked abruptly.

The question took Palumbo by surprise. “Well, hardly,” he said. He smiled. “Imagine serving them ice-cream! They’d soon grow too stout to work.”^*

“Or perhaps they might work harder, if they had such a thing to look forward to at the end of the day.”

“I doubt it very much. Are you a radical, Mrs. Hazzard?”

“I don’t call myself that.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Compassion is a fine thing, but dangerous when it’s misplaced. What I’ve learned in many years of overseeing the indentured is that they have to be treated very strictly at all times. They mistake kindness for weakness. And if they see a weakness in an Owner they’ll take advantage of it. They’re notorious for their laziness, and inventive in finding ways to pursue it.”

“I agree,” Mr. Wieland put in. “For instance, that servant you saw me discipline earlier tonight. ‘Only a broken wheel,’ you might think. But let it slide, and tomorrow there would be two broken wheels, or a dozen.”

“Yes, that’s the logic of it,” Palumbo said.

“Logic,” Calyxa said, “if you carry it to its conclusion, might imply that men working against their will are not the most efficient laborers.”

“Mrs. Hazzard! Good grief!” exclaimed Palumbo. “If the indentured are sullen, it’s only because they fail to appreciate their own good fortune. Have you seen the popular film Eula’s Choice?”

“Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“It explains the origins of the indenture system very succinctly. A bargain was struck sometime around the end of the False Tribulation, and the same terms obtain today.”

“You believe in the theory of Heritable Debt, Mr. Palumbo?”

“‘Heritable Debt’ is the radical’s term for it. You ought to be more careful in your reading, Mrs. Hazzard.”

“It’s a question of property,” Wieland interjected.

“Yes,” Calyxa said, “for the indentured don’t have any—in fact they are property.”

“Not at all. You defame the people you mean to defend. Of course the indentured have property. They own their bodies, their skills, if any, and their capacity for labor. If they don’t seem to own these things, it’s only because the commodity has already been sold. It happened as in the film Mr. Palumbo mentions. Refugees from the Fall of the Cities traded the only goods they possessed—their hands, their hearts, and their votes—for food and shelter in a difficult time.”

“A person ought not to be able to sell himself,” Calyxa said, “much less his vote.”

“If a person owns himself then he must be able to sell himself. Else what meaning does property have? As for the vote, he isn’t deprived of it—it still exists—he has only signed it over to his landed employer, who votes it for him.”

“Yes, so the Owners can control that sorry excuse for a Senate—”

This was perhaps too much to say. Nearby heads turned toward us, and Calyxa blushed and lowered her voice. “I mean, these are opinions that I have read. In any case, the bargain you describe was made more than a century ago, if it was made at all. Nowadays people are born into indenture.”

“A debt is a debt, Mrs. Hazzard. The commitment doesn’t vanish simply because a man has had the bad luck to die. If a man’s possessions pass by right to his survivors, so do his obligations. What have you been reading that left you laboring under such misapprehensions?”