The Ecliptic Read Online Free PDF

frisking his torso. ‘D’you have any matches?’
    ‘There should be some by your stove.’
    He cleared his nose and spat. ‘There aren’t.’
    ‘Well, I’ve a full box in my studio. I can fetch it if you like.’
    ‘Nah, don’t bother. I’ll have to do it the hard way.’ With this, the boy dropped to his haunches and began to burrow into the snow and mulch and pine cones. Soon enough,
he was bringing up clods of rust-red soil. He tossed an armload into the drum and it rained fatly on the metal.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    He did not answer, just kept on digging with his hands and plunking the loose earth inside the can.
    ‘What are you burying?’
    It did not seem to bother him that I was watching—there was something tunnel-eyed and frantic about him as he quarried the ground, like a fox hunting rabbits. After a while, the drum was
about a quarter full, and he stopped, sitting on the snow with his back against the metal. Strands of his fringe were stuck upon his forehead. He looked so young and afraid.
    ‘Fullerton,’ I said—it was a difficult name to speak tenderly. ‘Is everything all right?’
    He sat there, panting, gazing at nothing.
    ‘Do you want me to go?’
    ‘I couldn’t care less what you do,’ he said.
    The others were still waiting. I saw their huddled shadows and felt glad of them. But Fullerton called after me as I walked away: ‘Wait a sec. Hold on.’ There was a note of
contrition in his voice.
    I turned.
    ‘It’s nothing personal,’ he said. ‘It’s just—look, I haven’t sussed this place out yet. There are loads more rules than I thought there’d
be.’
    It bothered me that he had been admitted without understanding everything. My own sponsor had spent two full days readying me for the prospect of Portmantle, explaining everything that lay
ahead. So I went back to the boy and said, ‘If you have any questions, just ask.’
    He spat again. ‘I was told no drinking, no drugs, no phone calls and whatever. But your mate Quickson said there was other stuff, too. I don’t know if he meant the ferry tokens, but
I bought two of them like they told me—there’s one in my bag somewhere. You think that’s what he was talking about?’
    ‘It’s Quick
man
.’ I smiled. ‘And, yes, that’s part of it.’
    ‘Do you still have yours?’
    ‘I do, but not on me. Somewhere safe. That’s more a superstition than a rule.’
    ‘Oh.’ He gave another sigh. ‘Well, that old bloke went through my bag before. I thought that’s what he was after.’
    ‘Ender, you mean?’
    ‘Yeah, he patted me down. It was weird.’
    ‘Ender’s OK—just doing his job. If there weren’t any rules, this place would fall apart.’
    ‘So everyone gets frisked?’
    ‘Only once. You’re no different from the rest of us.’
    ‘It just took me by surprise, that’s all.’
    ‘Your sponsor should’ve warned you.’
    Fullerton got up from the snow. He studied my face, as though gauging every pore of it for weaknesses. ‘Well, I don’t plan on staying here that long anyway. I just need to clear my
head and then I’m going back to finish what I started.’
    ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t set myself too many restrictions. It’ll take as long as it takes.’ I wanted to tell him that I had believed the same thing when I came to
Portmantle. That I would find my clarity in a matter of days. That I would not need the provost’s intervention: the visa documents specially acquired and signed on my behalf. But there was no
point in daunting the boy any further. ‘You know,’ I said instead, ‘when I came here, I was lucky. I had someone to help me through the early part, the hard part. You remember
MacKinney?’
    He nodded.
    ‘She and I were admitted on the same afternoon. We took the same ferry from Kabata ş and didn’t even know it. If it hadn’t been for her, I
wouldn’t have made it this far.’
    ‘Look, I’m glad it all worked out for you,’ said Fullerton. ‘But that