"Amery, what would you do if you were in my place?" he heard himself ask suddenly.
Amery steepled his fingers. "I hesitate to suggest a deception to anyone, but since you ask me what I would do if I didn't have a Rider, I will tell you the truth: I would pretend that I did not have a Rider."
"What are you talking about? I don't have a Rider. So far as I myself personally know, I'm the only person in the whole damned world that doesn't have one. I'd like to find out why, but I'm no scientist. So I just have to live with it. Or without it."
"There's a very, very fine difference," Amery pointed out with one finger. "Semantics is no longer a living science since the Coming, but I'll try to make myself clear. You must pretend to have to pretend that you don't have a Rider. Join the Jockey Set."
"Jockey Set," Malloy mumbled, massaging the back of his neck. "I've been put away for three and a half years. What's the Jockey Set?"
"Jockeys are characters who pretend that they don't have Riders, that they are self-sufficient human beings. Sometimes they use their Riders' powers and claim to be natural supermen. Sometimes they leave Rider power untapped and pretend to be natural, old-type human beings. But they are all fakes. The Rider in them comes out sooner or later."
"But if they have Riders, will I be able to fool them into thinking I'm only pretending to be without one?"
Amery lifted his shoulders and drew down the corners of his mouth. "Who knows? I will tell you this, though—you must be pretty much of a blank to a Rider. If they won't touch you, it must mean they can't."
Malloy started to ask him how he knew what Riders felt about him, then thought better of it.