Chapter II

Gedank was situated in the middle of a low valley, so perfectly centered that it was whispered by the students to have been the product of a miraculous extemporization rather than human labor. The valley itself was small, almost claustrophobic, and, on clear days, when the near perpetual mist that settled on the valley cleared, it was easy to see from one end of the valley to the other.

The mountains surrounding Gedank, far from being intimidating, were misshapen ponderous things, like swollen hills that had grown beyond their original intentions. On most days the mist blanketed their lower halves, as if to preserve their modesty.

The camp itself was fenced on each side by high wooden walls, stacked three logs deep and covered by thorny vines that managed to simultaneously give the camp a natural aesthetic and remind the students that their extremities would be unlikely to survive an escape attempt.

Each thorn on the vines was as long as a finger and as sharp as a knife. Like assassins, the vines hid their weapons unless a careless bystander happened to get too close. Then they would reach out in a sudden and violent motion. Even the judges stationed at Gedank were careful not to get too close to the walls, especially on misty days, when the vines were feeling especially bold.

In short, if one ignored the obvious prison-like qualities of Gedank, it might have been said to be a nice place to live. The buildings were clean and well maintained, done in a stolid imperial style that Gerech found to be strangely comforting, and there was never a shortage of food, clean clothes, or activities to keep them busy during the day.

That made it even more of a shame, in his opinion, that the classes were so unutterably boring.

“And why did the Second Justiciar claim that Justice is not merely a product of either practical reasoning or virtuous intuition, as the First Justiciar had originally supposed? Becker.”

Becker, a long-faced blonde sitting stiffly in the back of the room, stood on hearing his name. “Professor, it’s because each example of ethical reasoning must have at its beginning a starting point that is itself impossible to justify, an axiom that is simply taken for granted, which rules out practical reasoning. Equally, intuition is without the means-end considerations that lead to having a firm conception of Justice in the first place. Both, taken on their own, will lead to flawed reasoning in the pursuit of justice.”

“Then what did the Second Justiciar decide was the place of reasoning and intuition in his conception of Justice?”

“Professor, he wrote that true Justice is the product of the cultivation of a virtuous mindset, alongside careful consideration and progress toward those goods which are good in of themselves not just for the individual, but for society. Either without the other will result in a failure of Justice.”

Professor Heinke nodded, apparently satisfied, and he motioned for Becker to sit down. The boy did so with barely concealed relief.

Gerech wanted to snort at the sight. Heinke letting Becker sit after giving an explanation that any uneducated county magistrate could have provided was a travesty. It resembled plagiarism more than a thoughtful response.

Becker read little of what they were supposed to read, and understood even less. He was fortunate that Heinke didn’t expect much more than regurgitating second-hand texts.

If he thought that they would let him sit for the dialectician exams with his understanding of Justice then he was even more deluded than most of Gerech’s classmates.

“The Second Justiciar’s contributions to our understanding of Justice as a virtue can’t be understated,” Heinke went on. “It was his work that advanced our concept of Justice to a point at which we could base a government, and a society, around it. The entire system of dialectician and magistrates is a direct result of policies he put in place after writing Justice as a Virtue. You might even say that the exam for the level of Fourth Dialectician is primarily an exam on your understanding of the relationship between Justice and virtue.”

It wasn’t hard for Gerech to tune Heinke out. Most of what he was saying Gerech already knew. It wasn’t, after all, his first time in the class.

From his point of view it was far more interesting to look around at his classmates and wonder how many of them would still be around in another six months.

Becker would be long gone, of course, either off to a less advanced reeducation camp or, if his results really tanked, to one of the indentured labor camps that dotted the countryside like so many infected sores. It was hard to think about those camps.

Or, Gerech thought, it would be more accurate to say that it was hard to think about those kinds of camps without thinking of Bede.

There were too many kinds of camps to name, and too many to even begin to guess where she might have ended up. Even after so long, his mind plagued him with possibilities every night.

Was she stuck in a mine somewhere, laboring with pick and shovel to get the materials for those pristine masks the judges wore? Or was she a maidservant to some bumpkin magistrate? The laws protecting servants were strict, but there were always stories about how they were circumvented or ignored.

The thought of someone laying their hands on her made his stomach roll and his anger start to boil.

Gerech had to forcibly unclench his hands. Nothing would have happened to her. He told himself that every day, every night, when she came to mind. They wouldn’t have done anything to her. As long as she cooperated, as long as she buried the kind of person she was in favor of being a productive and compliant laborer, she would be fine.

She would be fine and he wouldn’t have another thing to blame himself for.

The class was letting itself out. Gerech should have already left; they were seated in order of class standing, with the worst students in the back and the best in the front. If he had been paying attention, he would have been one of the first to go. His seat was practically in the rafters.

Still, he wasn’t in much of a rush. ‘Free time’ was a bit too on the nose when you were in a reeducation camp.

“Daydreaming again?” Heinke asked, when it was just the two of them left.

“No offense, but your class was better the first time around,” Gerech said.

“Then you should have passed it. It’s not designed to be the sort of class you take twice,” Heinke said.

“Tell that to the director. You know that I’m always ready to move on to bigger and better things.”

“If you turned in a satisfactory final paper then you might have been able to. I warned you that your topic would put you in an uncomfortable position.”

“Shouldn’t it be the quality of original thought and argumentation in the paper that decides who moves on, and not who can best reword ‘generally accepted’ secondary sources?”

“Quality is one thing. Attempting to undermine the reasoning behind the modern concept of Justice is quite another,” Heinke said, his usual cheer dimming, if only for a moment.

“A judge once told me that there’s nothing to fear from a different philosophy, as long as you really think that yours is superior.”

“Maybe that’s right. But a pithy quote certainly isn’t going to change the minds of the camp and academy administrators.”

“Is pleasing a bunch of administrators really the end goal of all of this?” Gerech asked. He gestured around to the classroom, but it felt more like he was gesturing toward the camp itself.

Gerech liked to think that Heinke was fond of him. In comparison to the other students, he understood what they were reading and could speak intelligently about it. He had to understand it if he was going to make a valid critique of it. Heinke could disparage his motivation all he wanted, the results spoke for themselves as far as he was concerned.

To put the point more accurately, it often seemed to Gerech that Heinke the professor was fond of him, and Heinke the reeducation camp authority figure was frustrated with him. That made it difficult for Gerech to resist poking at the dual sides of Heinke, seeing if he could tease out some inner conflict with every paper and every argument.

Interesting ways to pass the time were rare in Gedank. He was fortunate that Heinke was such a good sport about it.

“I’m advocating for you again, tonight,” Heinke said, his tone turning serious.

“Not that I don’t appreciate you doing that for me, since it means I won’t get stuck with Pollings or Gertheart,” Gerech said, ignoring the murmured rebuke about proper titles. “But I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference at this point. They’ve already made up their minds about me.”

“I like to think that I have enough influence around here to make my mind known when the situation calls for it,” Heinke said.

It was a generous offer, and it wasn’t the first time that Heinke had made it. However, it wasn’t freely given.

The implication was all too clear; fall in line, change your tune, and everything else will snap into place without any problems.

Rejecting tempting offers was something of his specialty, Gerech thought. Whether it was a judge, a philosopher, or a king, he wouldn’t bow to any conscience but his own. His father had taught him that much.

“Influence is a currency; I wouldn’t waste yours on me,” Gerech said.

Heinke never took his refusals personally. “Then I won’t pry any further. I will remind you, however, that the path for someone with dubious connections, and without the support of an institution like this, can be fraught with numerous perils. It isn’t easy to make your way in the world without a friend, and already on the wrong side of the government.”

“Judging me before I’ve even done anything? Doesn’t sound like Justice to me.”

“People struggle their entire lives to measure up to the ideals of Justice. I wouldn’t live life expecting that they’ll be perfect,” Heinke said, with the sort of wry amusement that made Gerech think that he had once indulged in that very mistake.

“I think I’ll be alright,” Gerech said.

Heinke scrutinized him closely, intensely, to the point that Gerech started to squirm under the examination. It was like he was trying to see past everything on the surface and find out something truer and essential about him.

There were always whispers about the strange behavior and possible powers of certain philosophers, but Gerech always remembered how little his father had displayed in the way of extraordinary behavior and dismissed that as idle chatter. Occasionally, however, Heinke would do something that made Gerech start to question that dismissal and wonder, if only for a moment, if there was something to the rumors after all.

If anyone was going to develop strange abilities, wouldn’t it be the philosophers who spent their entire lives in pursuit of the truest representation of the Concept?

Finally, Heinke seemed satisfied with his exam. Gerech almost released a relieved sigh. He felt like he had been standing stiff at attention for an hour.

“You may be right. You seem like the sort of person to land on his feet,” Heinke said. “Either way, you’ve stayed behind for too long. You’re going to miss dinner, and that will land you in trouble even before your review.”

Gerech took the dismissal with grace. He left Heinke sitting at his desk, a pensive expression on his face.

It was kind of Heinke to be his advocate yet again, but Gerech had started thinking of his monthly reviews more as summary executions than meetings. They would gather the academy’s Headmistress, the camp director, and the head of security together, put them in a cramped room, and then spend an hour dissecting every single report which had been put together on him in the last month (which was, usually, a flattering amount), none of which depicted him in a flattering light.

Then, they would reject his application to take the dialectician exams and send him back with a stern warning that if his behavior didn’t shape up they would send him to a different, less accommodating camp.

It wouldn’t be the first time they had threatened that. Gerech had concluded months ago that if they could have shipped him off, they would have.

Something was staying their hand. It bothered him that he didn’t know what.

Though, as he turned a corner on his way to the dining hall, he decided that some people certainly wished that they weren’t so constrained.

“Talking a little walk around campus?” Hest asked. He was, as usual, wearing his bronze mask, despite the fact that he was the only judge in Gedank that bothered with it.

“I was with Professor Heinke. You can go ask him if you like,” Gerech said, trying to at least sound polite. It wasn’t worth giving Hest the smallest infraction—he would exploit it to the utmost.

“No need. I trust you,” Hest said, moving to the center of the path so that he could block Gerech.

“Glad to hear it.”

“In fact, since I know just how much of an upstanding individual you are, I thought I would ask if you heard anything about some contraband being smuggled into camp. We’ve caught a few inmates with illicit material.”

Inmates. If Hest had one habit that Gerech found especially odious, it was his way of referring to the other students as inmates. While not far off from reality, it had a certain tinge of self-righteous condescension that made Gerech want to familiarize his shiny mask with the hard ground.

Liene had told him that the people at Gedank wanted to help, that they understood what he had been through. Hest may have known, but he certainly didn’t care.

Gerech disliked him, wished him ill even, but it was nice to know that he didn’t have to wonder about where he stood with Hest.

“I wouldn’t know how any of the students got their hands on that. I’m sure you know that I haven’t left camp in two years,” Gerech said. Obeisance, false or otherwise, was the best way of keeping his conversations with Hest short.

“Of course not. I just thought I’d ask you to keep your eyes open. The punishment for someone caught smuggling is serious; a labor camp would be the least of it. On the other hand, the reward for any information would be equally impressive. I’ll make sure to let your, uh, classmates, know as well. So that they can keep their eyes open too.”

“That sounds like a brilliant plan,” Gerech said, unfazed. Hest had been trying to string him up on some kind of charge since his first month. Gerech liked to think that it assuaged his irritation at never getting a promotion.

They had both seen generations pass through Gedank. Judges and students never spent very long at Gedank. Other than the professors and the administrators, they were two of the camp’s most storied occupants.

“If you think that a couple of books and some yellow journalism are going to keep any of the people in here from turning you in then you have another thing coming,” Hest said. “Bad seed will out. They’ll turn on you in a heartbeat, and then you’ll be out and where you belong.”

“I look forward to it,” Gerech said, slipping past Hest on the side of the walkway.

Protestations of innocence hadn’t worked in the beginning and they certainly wouldn’t work after all of the trouble he had caused. Though, his trouble was more on the academic side of things, rather than what Hest should have been concerned with. Gerech supposed that there was just something about him that made him seem like a subversive element to Hest. Or maybe it was a power trip. Didn’t make the slightest difference to him.

He didn’t pass anyone else on the way to the dining hall. It was only when there weren’t any lurking judges, or harried students, that the beauty of the camp was visible.

Whoever had designed the academic half of Gedank had taken serious liberties with the aesthetics, setting up vaulting roofs for the buildings, neat and evenly spaced trees on either side of the paths, and even a small statue of a noted painter in the middle of the quadrivium.

It could have been designed to evoke a contrast with the other half of camp, where the students had to sleep, work, and face inspection, but Gerech always appreciated the beauty of the camp’s better half when he could. Even if it was an obvious ploy to make them appreciate the benefits that a career as a dialectician could offer, as opposed to a fruitless and painful intellectual revolt, he could still admire the work and thought that had gone into its design. Beautiful propaganda was still beautiful.

He wouldn’t go so far as to hold Beauty above Justice; that was a touch too heretical even for him. Still, he would appreciate beauty where he could.

The rest of the students were in the dining hall by the time he got there, served and seated, and more than a few turned to look at him when he entered. No doubt they were wondering what he had done to get held behind again, and if they could capitalize on it somehow.

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The server gave Gerech a nasty look, either for his tardiness or the crime of existing, but piled his plate with the usual greens, lumpy meats, and tasteless grains nonetheless. Plentiful, if not appealing. Gerech took his usual spot in the dining hall.

“Should we be worried?” Sibyl asked.

Aya, sitting next to him, smiled, but covered her mouth with her hand.

“I didn’t do anything,” Gerech said. He used the butt end of his knife to break the bread into pieces, then let one sit in his mouth until it was chewable.

“That’s never convincing...coming from you,” Sibyl said.

“You have trust issues. I didn’t do anything and I’m not planning on doing anything.”

“That’s what you said the last three times you were late. If I remember right, you got mandatory service duty every single one of those times.”

“I think that means we’re due for a change of pace,” Gerech said.

Sibyl leaned his head onto his palm and pushed his empty plate to the side, as if it was in his way. He sighed dramatically. Aya rolled her eyes but Gerech could tell that she was enjoying herself.

“If you tell us what you got held late for I might believe you,” Sibyl said.

“Heinke wanted to talk about Aya. He said that she’s an excellent student and that I should absolutely stay as far away from her as possible, so that I don’t corrupt her and make her fail his class like I did,” Gerech said.

“As if I would ever fail a class,” Aya said.

“As if you would ever do less than perfectly in a class,” Sibyl said, before turning back to Gerech. “And don’t think that I actually believe that’s what you were talking about.”

“You don’t think that Aya is worth talking about?” Gerech asked, putting on a confused expression. He enjoyed the way that Sibyl colored.

“Of course she is,” Sibyl said, shooting a quick glance at Aya to gauge her reaction. She kept her face carefully blank.

“Then you don’t think that I’m a bad influence on her?”

“You’re definitely a bad influence on her.”

“Then what don’t you believe?” Gerech said.

Aya couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and broke down into giggles. Gerech would take that as a win any day. Giving Aya the occasional smile, even if it was at Sibyl’s expense, was worth it every time.

“It was about your review, wasn’t it?” Sibyl asked, turning serious.

“Heinke said that he’ll be the one advocating for me. The man really doesn’t know a lost cause, when he sees it, I guess,” Gerech said.

“Professor Heinke’s a genius and you’re not a lost cause,” Aya said, with a ferocity that pleased Gerech. “He used your paper from last semester as an example in our class.”

“To systematically dismantle it,” Sibyl said.

“Well, yes, but the point is that he’s never used a student’s paper before,” Aya said.

“Is that the paper that you were bragging you got a perfect score on?” Gerech asked.

“That’s also beside the point. What I’m trying to say is that Heinke wouldn’t bother spending time on you if he didn’t like you, respect you, and think that you had potential. I don’t think he’s bothered to advocate for anyone but you in the last year. I heard Professor Gertheart talking about how odd it was,” Aya said, with a certain smugness at knowing something they didn’t.

“I bet she was thrilled. She’s hated Gerech ever since we had Intro to Historicism with her and he refused to write about the assigned topic,” Sibyl said.

“Actually, that was my second time taking the class,” Gerech said.

“Hmm, true. Forgot about that. If you’re not careful you’ll end up stuck here longer than the professors,” Sibyl said.

“As long as he’s gone before Hest,” Aya said, elbowing Sibyl conspiratorially.

“That’s a given. I don’t think Hest would know what to do with himself if Gerech left before him. He doesn’t have any other targets.”

“Or hobbies.”

“Hopes.”

“Or dreams.”

“I’m flattered to be so important to him,” Gerech said. “He actually came up to me after I met with Heinke. Seems to be convinced that I’ve been smuggling contraband into camp. He’s offering some kind of reward or another for catching ‘the guilty party,’ by which he means offering incriminating evidence about me.”

“Good luck. You’re only a rebel in the classroom,” Sibyl said. “I think that if Hest got to know you as well as we do he would figure out that you’re really very boring.”

“According to Professor Pollings, a rebel in the classroom is actually just how it begins. And it ends in Camp Fornier, with a pick in your hands and a shackle around your ankles,” Aya said, like she was telling a ghost story.

“How exactly did Pollings get a job here?” Gerech asked.

“Nobody else wanted to take a job in a reeducation camp filled with backwards people from backwards families?” Sibyl suggested.

“She’s not that bad,” Aya said.

“You’re right. Gertheart is probably worse,” Gerech said.

Aya sighed, then waved a hand in the air, as if to announce that she was washing her hands of them. Her plate was hardly half finished but she took it and stood.

“Going somewhere?” Sibyl asked.

“I’m almost done with my next paper for Pollings and listening to you two boneheads go on has given me a couple of ideas,” she said.

“Does that make us your muses?” Gerech asked.

“It’s more like you’re convenient background noise that lets me focus on the important things,” Aya said, flipping her long hair over her shoulder dramatically. Gerech rolled his eyes as she walked away.

“She won’t be here another six months before she gets moved on,” Sibyl said, sounding almost mournful.

“You could follow her, if you put your head into books instead of this week’s gossip and distractions,” Gerech said.

“I’m not ever going to distinguish myself like that. It doesn’t click for me like it does for the two of you. I think the talent skipped a generation in my family tree,” Sibyl said. As his friend, Gerech wanted to console him.

If he was being honest though, Sibyl was unlikely to ever make it past Fourth Dialectician, if even that far. He was an almost invisible student who, because he was at Gedank, already had a black mark on his record as far as most people were concerned.

“I guess you’re stuck here with me then,” Gerech said. He thought that he would rather die than work for the government, but he didn’t expect Sibyl to be so picky. He was a good friend, but not much for principled stands.

“You haven’t actually talked about Aya with any of your professors, have you?” Sibyl asked.

“Other than Heinke, most of my professors try to ignore the fact that I exist these days. Why?”

“You’re right about one thing,” Sibyl said. “The two of us are going to be kept here until we get shunted to another, worse, camp. Aya isn’t like that though. She has a chance to actually go on and do something with her life. I just… don’t want her to miss out on that opportunity because Gertheart or Pollings think that she’s been hanging around bad influences.”

“Hanging around with me, you mean. I couldn’t influence her if I tried,” Gerech said, but the joke felt weak, and collapsed under Sibyl’s serious stare.

“Getting out of here isn’t important to you. I get that. Everyone gets that. But Aya wants a chance, and honestly, if the professors or the guards or anyone else sees you with her too often, it might jeopardize that,” Sibyl said.

“You want me to stay away from her.”

“I’m not saying that you can’t ever talk to her again or something. I just don’t think you should be seen with her too much.”

“And you’re the one who gets to decide that?” Gerech felt an angry heat rising up. Aya was special, and worth protecting. That didn’t mean Sibyl got to dictate how he acted, as if he was somehow dangerous to her.

“I’m her friend. I’m looking out for her. I’m only telling you about this because I know you care about her too, even if you can’t stop making jokes like nothing actually matters,” Sibyl said.

Gerech wanted to get even angrier—would have gotten angrier if Sibyl had said something like that to him a year ago—but spending so much time in Gedank had taught him that the guards, and professors, and administrators were all petty and controlling, and that they picked favorites.

They liked Aya. They hated him. When it came down to it, would he be willing to stake her future on a bet that they liked her more than they hated him?

He wouldn’t. He knew it, and Sibyl knew it too. Aya had worked tirelessly to distinguish herself for the last few months, had risen to the top of her classes without any help, and had made sure that she didn’t make a single misstep in the eyes of the guards or her reviewers.

All she had needed was a friendly face and a helping hand in the very beginning. Since then, she had blazed her own path.

Even if he hated the system, and, to an extent, the people who bowed down to it, he had never been able to do anything but admire Aya for her unwavering determination.

“She won’t understand. She’s not…”

“Savvy. She’s smart, but not savvy,” Sibyl said, knowingly. Sibyl, who was friends with the other students, casual with the guards, and obedient to the professors. Sibyl, who never put a wrong foot forward and always seemed to know the best thing to say at the best time.

Gerech nodded, and busied himself with looking around the room, as if to catch someone listening in, but more because he didn’t want to look at Sibyl, or figure out why the idea of Aya leaving him behind hurt so much more than he had thought it would.

“You’re like an older brother to her. Even if she doesn’t understand it now, she’ll appreciate it someday.”

“Sibyl, not to be an ass, but I’m really not interested in justifications right now,” Gerech said. He switched his attention to the rest of the room, forced his attention onto them so that it wouldn’t have to be on him, or on Sibyl; and especially not on Aya.

He had thought that he was protecting her from the worst of Gedank, shielding her from the wrong people and steering her toward the right. In the beginning, he had been. When had things changed so dramatically?

The rest of the room was suddenly so much more interesting. Betta was deep in conversation with Ingst, probably something romantic judging from the faint flush on their cheeks and the way they kept looking around the room.

Willims continually glanced over at the servers, then back at his empty plate, before poking his pudgy belly morosely, as if that would stop the hunger pangs.

Nang was sitting by herself again, with her head down, refusing to make eye contact with anyone, as close to the corner of the room with the door as she could be (and hardly three feet from the closest judge). At the other end of the room, Ernst and Pastor were staring at her and talking in low tones.

At the other end of the room, Solon stood up. His lanky dark hair fell into his face but he didn’t brush it aside. He returned his tray to the servers, then, with only the barest incline of the head to the judges on either side of the door, left the dining hall. As if his exit was a signal, the rest of the people who were finished began shuffling toward the servers and the doors.

Gerech wasn’t interested in many people at Gedank. Solon was an exception to that. He had only been at Gedank for three months but there were already a dozen variations on the rumor that he was a prodigy.

People whispered that he would be taking the Dialectician Third Class exams before the end of the year, as if an exemption from the fourth level exam was something that actually existed.

There weren’t many people in Gedank that Gerech hadn’t taken classes with. He had been held back from advancing in half of his, which left him stuck with the newer and younger students, and he was grudgingly passed in the other half, keeping him with the older crowd.

However, Solon had only been in the usual classes for a month before his ability had been recognized and he was moved into the sort of small, individualized classes that the professors only used when there was a student they were convinced would be able to help advance their own careers later on. At least, that was what Gerech thought.

Even Heinke, who Gerech otherwise respected, had taken an interest in Solon, working with him on some independent study that neither of them would tell anyone else about. Not that anyone would ask them. Solon was utterly unapproachable, and no student was idiotic enough to pry into a professor’s business.

Solon may have been unapproachable, but there wasn’t much for Gerech to lose anymore. Making enemies out of the other students wasn’t exactly something he was worried about anymore. Might as well see what was so interesting that the rest of his classmates and professors were falling all over themselves about.

Maybe it would distract him from Aya.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said to Sibyl, not waiting for a response before he dashed out the doors after Solon. The judges gave him a strange look as he passed by, and he vaguely heard something from Sibyl about cleaning up his plate, but he ignored them all.

Solon hadn’t gotten far. He was taking his time through the camp’s quad, seemingly heading in the direction of their dorms. Gerech would have expected such a top student to spend all of his spare time in the library, since they weren’t able to take most of the worthwhile materials out of it. Unless, of course, he had special dispensation from a professor.

Despite how strange his approach was, Solon didn’t look surprised to see him. He was even the one to break the momentarily tense silence between them.

“Gerech Storrisch, yes? Professor Heinke told me about you.”

“If it was Heinke then I’m afraid that everything he said is true,” Gerech said.

“Are you going back to the dorms?” Solon asked.

“I could stand for a nap before I start on my assignments,” Gerech said. He had been aiming for a joking rapport with Solon, but from the utterly vacant expression on his face Gerech supposed that that wasn’t the best way of going about getting to know him.

“I wasn’t under the impression that you did most of your assignments,” Solon said. “Professor Heinke told me that your work falls into three broad categories: unfinished, half-hearted, and deliberately inflammatory. I believe that he was warning me away from your example.”

“It’s more like I selectively skip the ones that could land me in the most trouble and I’m too honest on the rest for my own good,” Gerech said.

“Does avoiding problems fit with your personal philosophy?” Solon asked. Despite the aggressive nature of the question, he asked it in an almost innocent fashion, like he really was just curious and not looking to get a rise out of Gerech.

“This place has a tendency to make me compromise on all sorts of things that I never thought I would,” Gerech said, dropping his artificial joviality.

“I can’t say that I’ve had that problem,” Solon said.

There was plenty that could be read into that, but Gerech was nervous about trying to get a read on Solon so quickly. He didn’t have any obvious quirks or tells, patterns or fallbacks, that most people did when they were speaking. It was as if he had picked up interacting with people in the same way that someone picked up a second language; he was stiff and unidiomatic.

“Sure. From what I’ve heard the professors all seem to love you,” Gerech said, probingly. He was rarely so blunt but he doubted Solon would care.

“They are pleased with my progress, but I had a degree of schooling before I came here so I don’t think that my performance is as surprising as many are making it out to be,” Solon said.

They were passing other students on the path now and getting strange looks. It was, from an outsider’s perspective, an odd juxtaposition; Solon was the best student in Gedank and Gerech was, if not the worst, than near the bottom of the list, and for reasons that were even more damnable than simple incompetence.

“I think a lot of people here had schooling. Hell, I had schooling. None of us are doing as well as you,” Gerech said.

“I don’t think that being exposed to a couple of wayward heretical ideas counts as schooling. The camp puts those who were trained in foreign schools along with those who were merely exposed to them. I expect that there are only a handful of people here who were systematically instructed. And of those, you might be one of the only ones to hold to what you were taught,” Solon said. There wasn’t any judgment in his tone, but Gerech didn’t get the sense that he was understanding either. While he prided himself on his ability to get a read on people, he was finding Solon inscrutable.

“That might be intentional,” Gerech said, taking a risk and continuing the line of thought. Such conversations weren’t banned, but if a judge overheard them talking it would no doubt find its way into their review files.

“Intentional?”

“People who only picked up fragments will be overwhelmed by the structure and clarity of a complete theory. Since they’re the majority, that creates an atmosphere of capitulation and obedience to the philosophies taught here, putting pressure on the people who did have more formalized training, and who would otherwise be more able to resist, to succumb in the same way as people who didn’t.”

“That’s a very cynical approach to the problem,” Solon said.

“I’ve spent a few years here. I like to think that I have some insight into the system,” Gerech said.

“Didn’t you ever consider just going along with their system? It would have gotten you away from here, at the very least,” Solon said. For the first time, his voice wasn’t utterly level; some curiosity had found its way in.

“I considered going that way in the beginning, but I’ve spent too long holding on to my beliefs to just let them go for the sake of convenience. For better or for worse, I’m stuck with them,” Gerech said.

There was a pause, as if Solon was digesting that, then he said: “I think it will turn out to be for the worse.”

Gerech couldn’t help but laugh. “No doubt. Things haven’t exactly gone well for me so far.”

They were outside of the camp dormitory for boys, a squat building made of some new cheap synthetic material. It was, by far, the ugliest building on campus.

The dormitory had been built so low that it forced the taller boys to bend their heads while they entered so that they didn’t run into the flimsy door frames. Solon was of a height that he would have to do that, Gerech judged.

In a few months, if he was still at Gedank, he might have to do it as well. Strange—when he had arrived, the building had seemed so appropriately sized.

Solon seemed ready to go inside, as if that had been the natural conclusion of their conversation, but he stopped abruptly and turned back to Gerech, like he had just decided on something.

“I think that sometimes holding on to your convictions is the only thing that you can do. It’s admirable, in its own way, even if it’s also idiotic,” Solon said. He went inside, and his expression never changed.

Gerech glanced around after that short statement, worried that a judge may have been listening in, but the only ones present were two pairs patrolling the pathways, neither of which were within normal earshot range (though that didn’t exactly mean much when it came to judges, Gerech knew).

He decided that he liked Solon. He was quiet, socially inept, and obviously bright, which was a career ending combination for any dialectician, if the rumors were to be believed. It was, fortunately, a combination that made for interesting company and conversation.

It would be a shame to see him go so soon, if only because he would no doubt be replaced by yet another brown-noser scurrying around the camp looking to curry favor with whatever judge or professor that caught their eye.

A shame, but he supposed he might be able to have a good conversation or two with Solon before he was sent away.

Their conversation would certainly go better than his review session. Gerech didn’t have to look at a clock to know that it was almost time.

He sighed. Sometimes it seemed like he was constantly picking the worst possible choice. Stuck at Gedank, without even a glimpse of freedom, because he was too stubborn to capitulate even in the face of certain failure.

Gerech just hoped that Bede was showing more sense than him.