The White Rooms (Paperback)

As I walked I thought about the children I had condemned to the White Rooms. Babies like Adam had been signed over to their death. I knew what happened there. Most Uppers who took any notice of anything knew. For dag’s sake we knew. But still there were the myths - the myths of the "Saintly Children", carried by winged and sailed boats to the islands. The islands off the coast, in the mist, shrouded in denser legend. Islands that, in fact, were the homes to the convicts, typhoid and diphtheria - to small pox and the new-death (a disease preferable to the disease). The disease none had named was kept to the subs. Kept to the subs and the White Rooms. And to the Uppers who went down.

I thought about all those who I had put on the Register, thinking only exile to subearth was their destiny. If the ex-doctor was correct then they were all hunted down. Perhaps even the tales of the catchers were true. We lived in a world where so much good was being done that I found it hard to think of a darker alternative. But it was also true that the Eloluc (the elite members of the founding Upper families; high government and military) were in constant perfect health, mind and body. All of us knew about the grown body-parts - but perhaps something more sinister was going on? Upper was a world of schizophrenics.

Once I had hoped to be an Eloluc. Jo’s father had missed his chance because he had married out. And perhaps he had been over-zealous on his campaigns. But the Upper world worked. It ran smoothly, it kept out the disease. And if one thinks logically then it was better that the children went to the White Rooms rather than...went through the anguish of the disease itself. This was the way I thought. As cold as the wind that blew. Little had I realised that I could never be an Eloluc.

Casting my mind back to the long-huts, I saw again the rows of perfect bodies and trapped eyes. But this time as I looked down on their faces; each frozen face was a face I knew. I stopped briefly, checked the digital for information. How was it that the helpers were allowed to serve but the children were...were, "evacuated"? This thought ran through my head, yet I knew the answer. The helpers had never developed the disease; could sniff out the crawlies; the children could have had the disease without anyone knowing. It was the stuff of nightmares, but true. The children could harbour the disease for their first five years without showing symptoms. We knew. Before the split into the two worlds, mothers who gave milk passed on the disease - mothers who had the disease passed it to their children. Blood got into the chain from routine blood tests and inoculations (when needles were more commonly used). Accidents happened. Children bit and scratched. Children fought. It only needed one incident to get into the sex-chain and...I took a deep breath. Part of my family had died as a result of one such spread. Before the split these things were not uncommon. Before the split every resource was used. And then it seemed simple - to divide, to separate. We had been separated for a long, long time.

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