LINC and Angelo stayed together for the evening meal. Rick, the black kid who bunked next to Linc, joined them at the table, along with Kew, the Oriental that Blondie had pushed off the seat in the bus. Two girls, Karen and Shel, who had latched onto them, sat opposite. They were chatty but alert-eyed and watchful, on the lookout for opportunity and maybe—who knows, if the offer were rights, the looks said—available. Linc remembered Mr. Green's warning and inwardly reaffirm his vow to stay straight—at least until he had a better idea of what this was all about.
Dinner was actually not too bad: meatball stew with potatoes and crusty bread, followed by a fruit-tart dessert. Or maybe that everyone had worked up appetites so big they didn't care too much. Whatever the reason, Angelo insisted on going back to the serving counter with Linc to voice their compliments on the improvement. They buttonholed one of the makeshift cooks, a thin, dark-haired girl who had been scanning the room particularly anxiously, and Angelo told her what they thought. She stared at him and Linc for a moment, then burst into tears. It turned out the kitchen crew had been struggling all afternoon to try and get it right. She said it was the first thing she'd done in her life that had been appreciated.
After the dishes were cleared, the cooks joined the rest of the company in the hall. A rainbow of "Mr."s and "Ms."s in tan shirts and colored vests stood at the back and along the walls. "Mr. Black"—who by now, of course, needed no introduction—mounted the dais at the end opposite the main door. Evidently, he was in overall charge of whatever the operation was here. He was tall and leanly rugged, with tanned, heavily lined features and close-cropped hair showing gray at the sides. His face and chin were stubbly, either because he was starting to grow a beard or had been too busy to shave for a day or two. The talk around the room died and gave way to an air of curious expectancy. He began:
"I understand that everyone who was expected has now arrived. First, let me welcome you all to Camp Coulie, where you are invited to be guests for the next six weeks. Those of you who are still with us at the end of that time, and who wish to continue, will proceed to a second six-week phase that will take place at a different location. Details will be posted at a later date. In the meantime we've a lot of work to get through, and that includes more this evening, so I'll keep this brief. Apologies to those who've only just got here, but that's the way life is."
Mr. Black looked from side to side as he spoke, taking in the lines of attentive faces. He kept his manner neutral, seeking neither to win favor nor impress, speaking with a firm voice in a way that suggested somebody accustomed to carrying authority that didn't need to be flaunted. His hands, Linc noted, were large and sinewy, the kind that looked as if they could bend bars and split boards. That wasn't from scribbling notes and writing reports in a psychologist's office, Linc told himself.
Mr. Black continued, "This morning two people from Hut 4 were found inhaling crack dust. They were off the premises by lunchtime, and at this moment are on their way back to the places they came from. Transgressions of the rules will not be tolerated." He then reiterated, one by one, all the rules that had been spelled out to Linc and the others shortly after their arrival. He then added a further point Mr. Green hadn't mentioned:
"I referred to you all a moment ago as guests. Let me make the meaning of that quite clear. Nobody is under any form of coercion to be here. Each and every one of you—and this will apply throughout your stay with us—can request RPO at any time, and it will be granted without question. However . . ." Mr. Black paused and glanced around again for emphasis, "for as long as you choose to remain, it will be on our terms. That's the only rule. The rest are conditions that you accept." He allowed a moment for them all to reflect on that.
"Waddya know. Guests," Karen muttered across the table. "I don't think I've ever been called a guest anywhere before." Shel snickered.
"Was your room all in order?" Kew said.
"Well . . . not bad, I guess."
"Considering the price," Angelo put in.
Mr. Black resumed, "Just to show that we're not all bad here, tonight you get to watch movies." A ripple of approving murmurs ran around, with one or two cheers. "But maybe these are movies that many of you have never had much of a chance to see." Mr. Black made a vague gesture in the air, which could have meant the room, the camp outside, or anywhere a hundred miles beyond. "Out there is some of the most rugged and challenging country to be found on this part of the planet. It can be beautiful; it can be lethal—just like a lot of things. How you fare with it depends a lot on you: what you're made of; how much you know. We're going to show you a little of the kinds of things to be found there, because in the next few weeks you're going to be finding out about them firsthand, yourselves. You'll also find out things about you. You'll find out what your strengths are and also your limits—where you need the help of others and what others have to rely on from you.
You'll know exhaustion and fear, maybe not a little pain—things that reveal people at their worst. But those same things can bring out the best in people too. You have a chance to discover parts of yourselves you never knew existed. We think they're there, otherwise you wouldn't be here. However, we're probably going to turn out to have been wrong some of the time. Make it your business to prove we weren't wrong about you" Black showed both hands to indicate that he was through. "That's it. I said I'd be brief. Are there any questions?"
A lot of muttering followed, with quizzical looks being exchanged around the tables. Finally, on the far side of the room, a heavy, red-faced youth stuck up a hand.
Mr. Black acknowledged with a nod. "Stand, please, so we can all hear." The youth shuffled to his feet. "You are?"
"Er, John. John Two."
"And? . . ."
John Two looked uncomfortable now that he had the room's attention. Somebody sitting beside him gave him a nudge. "Yeah, well, a couple of us here want to know . . ."
Mr. Black waited. "Yes?"
"Like, what it's all about. Don't we have some kind of right to know what's going on . . . you know? I mean, what's in it for us at the end of all this? Where are we supposed to be going?"
A few voices endorsed the question. Mr. Black, frowning, let them subside before answering. "Some kind of a right!" he repeated. "I think you still don't quite comprehend the situation. You are used to thinking of rights as if they exist automatically as things to be demanded and dispensed. But that was in a world that you are no longer a part of. We've all seen the trouble that belief has caused there. The only right that you have here is the one I've already indicated: to choose to return to where you came from at any time you wish. Rights beyond that, in the world that we are part of, are things to be earned. And they can be earned only by those who have learned to accept obligation. That's what you are here to learn. And strange as it may sound to most of you just at this moment, I can promise you that stands to be the single most valuable lesson any of you can learn in your entire lives."