 How does Rikud change through the story?
Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watch the great changeless sweep of space. But ever since the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone, from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had grown. Rikud knew that something which he could not explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had departed almost before Chuls knew of its existence. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watch the one new bright star. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no real authority to stop him. The people had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. Much of this Rikud could not understand, but he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the people against the elders, and it said the people had won. Rikud often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future, not without a sense of alarm. But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. "You know," Rikud said, sitting up now, "the stars in the viewport are changing." The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulses leap with excitement. Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had to turn away. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-white globe—if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer's book on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it was variable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. Change— "Won't you eat, Rikud?" Rikud turned again to the port, where he could see nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more confusing than ever. For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to accept it as fact. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another, it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in the health-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through the vast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this also was purposeful.
 He questions his world, his lack of autonomy, and what it really means to live.
 He questions his world, his lack of autonomy, and what it really means to live.  He realizes that he will one day have a mate chosen for him, and children as well.  He realizes his desire to feel pain, and to hurt for the first time.  He questions his "strange" thoughts, and how pervasive they are.