In a nursery on Anarres, the infant Shevek is visited in his nursery by his father Palat, who is an engineer. Palat has told the women who work in the nursery that Shevek will be living there full-time now that the boy's mother, Rulag, is taking a work post in Abbeney. Palat moves back into the domicile, where adults without partners live communally.
Years later, the young and precocious Shevek tells a physics joke in Speaking and Listening class and is accused of "egoizing" as opposed to sharing, a major faux pas in this society. It is another sixty days before he sees his father again. Their visit is a good one. Palat gives Shevek a mathematics book, and they stay up late talking about mathematics. That night, Shevek dreams about a great wall.....
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