Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail by Jack L. Chalker Page B

remember it or those still coming in from work or leaving for it. Apparently there were staggered start times for the shifts within the two-hour active period, probably to ease the mass-transit load.
    The caféteria was about half full, with the usual eating-place bustle and unintelligible mass-conversation buzz. There were no menu choices, I found—you went up, punched a button, got a covered tray, then went to a table and sat down. Water and a selection of three beverages at a self-service area in the center of the caféteria provided the only option.
    The food was unfamiliar but tasted pretty good. I was never very fussy about food and was certainly no gourmet, so I adjusted to this as easily as if I’d eaten the stuff all my life. After the jail mush and blocky slop of the reception center it was a real pleasure to have a recognizable plate with entrée, vegetables, and dessert. The meat seemed a standard synthetic, but the fruit and vegetable appeared fresh. I remembered that Medusa imported a fair amount of food from the warmer worlds category. Keep the masses happy, I thought, even if they can eat tree bark.
    I was struck by a number of things as I sat there eating, including at least one. fact that amazed me. Here were these people in the most totalitarian society I’d ever known or experienced, and they were sitting back, relaxed, talking, looking, and sounding for all the world like any caféteria crowd anyplace—except, of course, for then: bare hides. Far from making me relax more about Medusa, the observation that here was a totalitarian society that worked— worked so well that the generations born and raised into it felt completely at ease—made me nervous. I had to admit that Talant Ypsir might be an unpleasant individual, but he was damned smart.
    My other observations were on the more practical side. Medusans looked about as human as anybody else, particularly a frontier world population. Yet subtle differences that might otherwise go unnoticed were immediately apparent to an Outsider such as myself. The skin textures seemed far more leathery, somehow; the hair was also far stiffer, wiry. Even the eyes seemed somehow different, almost as if shaped by a master sculptor out of marble, without the shine and liquidity of human eyes.
    I knew that I, too, now shared these characteristics, yet I felt perfectly normal, not in the least bit changed. My skin had the same look as the skin of those around me, yet it felt normal, soft, and natural to me.
    A third observation was that I was the youngest-looking person in the caféteria, although several very young people were there. Well, nothing to do but get to know my roommate a bit more. She certainly seemed anxious to get to know me.
    “How old are you?” she asked. “They told me you were young, but I figured you’d be my age.”
    My eyebrows rose. “How old are you?”
    “Sixteen two weeks ago,” she told me proudly. “That’s when I started work here.”
    “Well, I’m close to fifteen,” I answered her initial question, stretching the truth a bit. There’s far less of a gap between fifteen and sixteen than between fourteen and sixteen. I wanted to press a bit further on her comment, though. “Who told you about me? And how come you and me are together here?”
    She sighed. “They really didn’t tell you anything, did they? Okay, three weeks ago I was just graduated and still in Huang Bay—that’s way south of here—with my family. I knew I was going to get assigned soon, though, and, sure enough, my orders came through. I was inducted into the Transport Guild and sent here to start work. About a week ago I was called down to the Supervisor’s office and told that I was being paired with one Tarin Bul, a young man sent here from Outside, and that the two of us would work as a pair thereafter. They also told me you’d have some ideas and ways I might find strange—and that’s certainly true. In fact, all this is still a little strange to