The Smoke really was smoky.
Open fires dotted the valley, surrounded by smallgroups of people. The scents of wood smoke and cookingdrifted up to Tally, smells that made her think of campingand outdoor parties. In addition to the smoke there was amorning mist in the air, a white finger creeping down intothe valley from a bank of clouds nestled against the mountainhigher up. A few solar panels glimmered feebly, gatheringwhat sun was reflected from the mist. Garden plotswere planted in random spots between the buildings,twenty or so one-story structures made from long planks ofwood. There was wood everywhere: in fences; as cookingspits; laid down in walkways over muddy patches; and inbig stacks by the fires. Tally wondered where they hadfound so much wood.
Then she saw the stumps at the edges of the settlement,and gasped. “Trees . . . ,” she whispered in horror. “You cutdown trees.”
Shay squeezed her hand. “Only in this valley. It seemsweird at first, but it’s the way the pre-Rusties lived too, youknow? And we’re planting more on the other side of themountain, pushing into the orchids.”
“Okay,” Tally said doubtfully. She saw a team of ugliesmoving a felled tree, pushing it along on a pair of hoverboards.
“There’s a grid?”
Shay nodded happily. “Just in places. We pulled up abunch of metal from a railroad, like the track you came upthe coast on. We’ve laid out a few hoverpaths through theSmoke, and eventually we’ll do the whole valley. I’ve beenworking on that project. We bury a piece of junk every fewpaces. Like everything here, it’s tougher than you’d think.
You wouldn’t believe how much a knapsack full of steelweighs.”
David and the others were already headed down, glidingsingle file between two rows of rocks painted a glowingorange. “That’s the hoverpath?” Tally asked.
“Yeah. Come on, I’ll take you down to the library.
You’ve got to meet the Boss.”
The Boss wasn’t really in charge here, Shay explained. Hejust acted like it, especially to newbies. But he was in commandof the library, the largest of the buildings in the settlement’scentral square.
The familiar smell of dusty books overwhelmed Tally atthe library door, and as she looked around, she realized thatbooks were pretty much all the library had. No big air-196 Scott Westerfeldscreen, not even private workscreens. Just mismatcheddesks and chairs and rows and rows of bookshelves.
Shay led her to the center of it all, where a round kioskwas inhabited by a small figure talking on an old-fashionedhandphone. As they drew closer, Tally felt her heart startingto pound. She’d been dreading what she was about to see.
The Boss was an old ugly. Tally had spotted a few froma distance on the way in, but had managed to turn her eyesaway. But here was the wrinkled, veined, discolored, shuffling,horrific truth, right before her eyes. His milky eyesglared at them as he berated whoever was on the phone, ina rattling voice and waving one claw at them to go away.
Shay giggled and pulled her toward the shelves. “He’llget to us eventually. There’s something I want to showyou first.”
“That poor man . . .”
“The Boss? Pretty wild, huh? He’s, like, forty! Wait untilyou talk to him.”
Tally swallowed, trying to erase the image of his saggingfeatures from her mind. These people were insane to toleratethat, to want it. “But his face . . . ,” Tally said.
“That’s nothing. Check these out.” Shay sat her down ata table, turned to a shelf, and pulled out a handful ofvolumes in protective covers. She plonked them in frontof Tally.
“Books on paper? What about them?”
“Not books. They’re called ‘magazines,’” Shay said. SheUGLIES 197opened one and pointed. Its strangely glossy pages werecovered with pictures. Of people.
Uglies.
Tally’s eyes widened as Shay turned the pages, pointingand giggling. She’d never seen so many wildly differentfaces before. Mouths and eyes and noses of every imaginableshape, all combined insanely on people of every age.
And the bodies. Some were grotesquely fat, or weirdly overmuscled,or uncomfortably thin, and almost all of them hadwrong, ugly proportions. But instead of being ashamed oftheir deformities, the people were laughing and kissing andposing, as if all the pictures had been taken at some hugeparty. “Who are these freaks?”
“They aren’t freaks,” Shay said. “The weird thing is,these are famous people.”
“Famous for what? Being hideous?”
“No. They’re sports stars, actors, artists. The men withstringy hair are musicians, I think. The really ugly ones arepoliticians, and someone told me the fatties are mostlycomedians.”
“That’s funny, as in strange,” Tally said. “So this is whatpeople looked like before the first pretty? How could anyonestand to open their eyes?”
“Yeah. It’s scary at first. But the weird thing is, if youkeep looking at them, you kind of get used to it.”
Shay turned to a fu............