The place was large and cold and somehow the instructions lost themselves in so strange a place. Jin 458-9998 walked where he was told, feeling the chill in his body and most especially on his skull where they had shaved off all his hair. 9998s were darkhaired and handsome and they were A's, important in the order of things; but the orderliness in his world had been upset. They had taken him into the white building on the farm and given him deepteach that told him the farm was no longer important, that he would be given a new and great purpose when he got where he was going, and that there would be other tapes to tell him so, very soon.

"Yes," he had said, because that was the appropriate acknowledgement, and the change had not vastly disturbed him at the outset. But then they had taken him, still muzzy with trank, into the med wing, which he never liked, because nothing good ever happened there, and they had taken his clothes and had him lie down on a table, after which they had shaved all the hair off him, every bit but his eyelashes, and shot him full of so many things that they used all of one arm and started on the other. It hurt, but he was used to that. He was only dismayed when he saw himself in the glass going out, and failed to recognize himself -- a destruction of all his vanity.

"How do you feel about this?" the supervisor had asked him, the standard question at a change; and he searched his heart as he was supposed to do and came up with a word that covered it.

"Erased."

"Why do you feel that way?"

"I look different."

"Is that all?"

He thought about it a moment. "I'm leaving the farm."

"What's worst?"

"My looks."

"It's to keep you clean for a while. While you're being shipped. Everyone has it done. They won't laugh at you. They won't notice you. It'll grow back in a few weeks and you'll have a new assignment. Tapes will explain it to you. It's supposed to be very good. They're taking only very expensive contracts like yours."

That had cheered him considerably. He stopped minding the shaving and the paperthin white coveralls and the loss of himself. He stood up then and started to leave.

"Goodbye, Jin," the supervisor said, and a little panic hit him at the thought that he was never again going to see this man who solved all his problems.

"Will someone there help me?" he asked.

"Of course there'll be someone. Do you want to shake hands, Jin? I think they're going to pass you a lot higher than you are here. But you have to be patient and take things as they come."

He came back, feeling strange about taking a born-man's hand, and very proud in that moment. "I'll miss you," he said.

"Yes. But the tapes will make you happy."

He nodded. That was so. He looked forward to it, because he was not thoroughly happy at the moment, and his ears were cold and his body felt strangely smooth and naked under the cloth. He let go the supervisor's hand and walked out, where another attendant took him in tow and led him to a building where others as shaven as himself were waiting. The sight hit him with deep shock -- that he knew some of them, and had trouble recognizing them at all; and they looked at him the same way. There were four other 9998s and they all looked alike, all like him; and there were three 687s and seven of the 5567s -- and all the small traits by which they knew each other as individuals were obliterated. Panic settled into him afresh.

"Which are you?" one of his own twins asked.

"I'm Jin," he said softly. "Are we all going to the same place?"

"Jin?" A female voice. "Jin--" It was one of the 687s; it was Pia, making room for him on the bench which ran round the room, among the others. He came and sat down with her, grateful, because Pia was a friend and he wanted something familiar to cling to. Her face was vastly changed. Pia's hair was dark as his own and it was all gone, her eyes staring out vast and dark from a lightly freckled face. They wound their fingers together for comfort in the space between them. He looked down. The hands were still like Pia's; the manners were still hers.

But she was back of him in the line somewhere, and they had mixed in a lot of strange azi from elsewhere, types he had never seen before, and the place was cold and miserable. The line stopped and he unfocussed his eyes, waiting, which was the best way to pass the time, thinking on pleasanter images such as the tapes gave him when he earned tapetime above his limit. But he could not conjure the same intensity as the tape, and it never quite overcame the cold. No one spoke; it was not a time for speaking, while they were being transferred. They had instructions to listen for. No one moved, because no one wanted to get lost, or to merit bad tape, which seemed very easy to earn in a situation like this, one for which no tape had ever prepared them.

They had ridden a ship up to this place. He had seen ships fly but had never imagined the sensation. His heart had gone double beats during the flight, and he had been terrified for a while, until he had gotten used to the sensation. But no sooner had he done that than they had entered a new state with other and worse sensations one atop the other. This time someone had thought to speak to them and to assure them it was safe.

Then they had knocked into something and they were advised they were at dock, that they were getting out on Cyteen Station, which was a star at night in the skies of Cyteen, and which he had watched move on summer nights. The news confused him, and of a sudden the door opened and blinded them with light. Some cried out: that was how disturbed they were. And they walked out when they were told, not into the shining heart of a star, but into a very large and very cold place, and were herded this way and that and bunked in a cold barn of a place where the floors all curved up. People walked askew and things tilted without falling over. He tried not to look; he became afraid when he looked at things like that, which suggested that even solid realities could be revised like tape. He wanted his fields back again, all golden in the sun, and the warmth on his back, and the coolth of water after work, and swimming in the brook when they had gotten too hot in summers.

But he could read and write, and presently as they were led along he read things like CYTEEN STATION and DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY; and A MAIN and A 2 and CUSTOMS and DETENTION. None of it was friendly, and least of all did he like the word detention, which led to bad tape. Others could read too, and no one said anything; but he guessed that everyone who could read had a stomach knotted up and a heart thudding up into the throat the same as his.

"This way," a man with a supervisor's green armband said, opening a door for their line. "You'll get tape here, by units of fifty. Count off as you go in."

Jin counted. He was 1-14, and a born-man passed him a chit that said so. He took his chit in hand and filed in behind the first.

It was more med. He followed his file into the whitewalled and antiseptic enclosure and his heart which had settled a moment started again into its now perpetual state of terror. "You're afraid," they told him when they checked his pulse. "Don't be afraid."

"Yes," he agreed, trying, but he was cold with his coveralls down to his waist and he jerked when one of the meds took his arm and shot something into it.

"That's trank," the woman said. "Cubicle 14 down the hall. You'll have time enough to hook up. Push the button if you have trouble."

"Thank you," he said and put his clothes back to rights, and walked where she aimed him. He went in and sat down on the couch, which was cold tufted plastic, not like the comfortable bed at home. He attached the leads, already feeling his pulse rate slowing and a lethargy settling into his thinking, so that if someone had come into the cubicle that moment and told him they might put him down, the news would have fallen on him very slowly. He was only afraid now of bad tape; or unfamiliar tape; or tape which might change what he was and make him forget the farm.

Then the warning beep sounded and he lay back on the couch, because the deepteach was about to cycle in, and he had just that time to settle or fall limp and hurt himself.

It hit, and he opened his mouth in panic, but it was too late to scream.

CODE AX, it gave him, and then a series of sounds; and wiped all the careful construction of his values and cast doubt on all his memories.

"Be calm," it told him as the spasms eased. "All A class find this procedure disorienting. Your fine mind and intelligence make this a little more difficult. Please cooperate. This is a necessary procedure. Your value is being increased. You are being prepared for a duty so vastly important that it will have to be explained in a series of tapes. Your contract has been appropriated by the state. You will be in transit on a ship and nothing will divert you from your purpose, which is a secret you will keep.

"When you step out in a new world you will be beside a river near a sea. You will work at the orders of born-men. You will be happy. When you have made a place to live you will make fields and follow other orders the tapes will give you. You are very fortunate. The state which holds your contract is very happy with you. We have every confidence in you. You can be very proud to be selected for this undertaking.

"Your bodies are very important. They will be under unusual stress. This tape will instruct you in precautionary exercise. Your minds will be important where you are going. You will be given instruction in that regard in this session. Please relax. You will be very valuable when we are done.

"You will be more and more like a born-man. The state which owns your contract is very pleased with you. This is why you were selected. Your genetic material is very important. You are to create born-men. This is only one of your many purposes. Is there a female you have formed a close friendship with?... Pia 86-687, thank you, yes, I am checking... Yes, this individual has been selected. This is an approved mating. You will both be very happy... Yes or no, respond at the tone: do you feel comfortable with this? A technician is standing by... thank you, Jin 458, your selfconfidence is a mark of your excellent background. You should feel very proud in this...."