Sammie didn’t respond, instead pushing aside the debris covering the door, stepping carelessly on rubble that didn’t bear examining too closely. A light started from his hand, played over a wide space, a countertop too solidly attached to move easily. He went behind, put both elbows on it, then leaned his head into his hands.
Dave ran his own light around the devastation, hoping not to find anything more identifiable than ripped plastic sheeting. He coughed in the dust. Beside him, Annette suddenly spoke: “Even your rotted beer would go good about now, Sammie.”
No one moved, as if the simple comment had been set loose to run over the room, checking size and shape, measuring for tables and plumbing, and they must do nothing but watch.
“It’s over.” A growl. A warning.
“It’s a great idea, Sammie,” Dave dared.
“Think so?” Sammie roared, lifting a face distorted with anguish and grief. “Mebbe I’m not innerested in any more ideas.”
Annette didn’t back away. “You know what your place was for us on Thromberg. That’s why you kept it open. Well, we need something like that here—as much as we need coms and hydroponics—something to help make this our home.”
“Do you think the Earthers want us to have one?” Hard and bitter. “Do you really think they want anything to do with us, once we’ve cleared the bodies and done their dirty work?”
Dave felt himself gently pushed to one side as Linda stepped up to the counter. The Earther stared at Sammie a long moment, then slammed down her hand. When she lifted it again, there was a ’dib lying there, reflecting light.
“Yes,” was all she said.
Titan University Archives
Public Access
Reference: Post-Quill Era;
Station Self-Government
…Among the leading destinations for travelers of this era were the newly independent stations, beginning with Thromberg and Hamilton. These cities in space not only hosted immigrants en route to the new colonies and tourists eager to experience deep space, but also became thriving communities in their own right, attracting commerce through their advantages of location, a skilled and motivated labor force, and abundant energy resources. Governor Pavel Romanov, of Hamilton Station, is credited with being the first extra-Solar politician to obtain contracts limiting involvement in station internal affairs by the System Universities and TerraCor, agreements signed, legend insists, in a bar called Sammie’s….
FOLLOW THE SKY
by Pamela Sargent
Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award. She is the author of several highly-praised novels, among them Cloned Lives (1976), The Golden Space, (1979), The Alien Upstairs (1983), and Alien Child (1988). The Washington Post Book World has called her “one of the genre’s best writers.”
Sargent is also the author of Ruler of the Sky (1993), an epic historical novel about Genghis Khan. Her Climb the Wind: A Novel of Another America published in 1999, was a finalist for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Child of Venus, in Sargent’s Venus trilogy, called “masterful” by Publishers Weekly, came out in 2001. Her latest short story collection is The Mountain Cage and Other Stories.
ALONZA’S earliest memory of her mother was also her last.
They crouched together in a shadowed space near a wall, Alonza and her mother Amparo, looking out at a brightly lighted corridor filled with people. Men and women hurried past them, a few chattering at the people nearest them, others striding along without speaking while staring straight ahead. On the other side of the corridor, holo images of meat pies, pastries, fruits, flatbreads, and colorful bottles appeared over the heads of the passersby, hung there for a few seconds, then vanished. Occasionally, a hovercar filled with people floated past, scattering the crowds with a sharp whistling sound.
Amparo clutched a small satchel. Her hand trembled slightly as she handed her daughter a bracelet. “Listen to me,” she whispered to Alonza, leaning closer. “Hang on to that bracelet for now—don’t drop it.”
Alonza tried to put the bracelet on, but there was no clasp, and she was unable to bend the thin band of metal tightly enough to secure it around her wrist. “It won’t stay on,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to go on. Put it in your pocket—just make sure you hang on to it until—”
“Amparo,” Alonza said, suddenly afraid. Her mother’s forehead glistened with sweat, and she was panting, gasping for air. Maybe she was ill. Alonza thrust the bracelet into one of the side pockets of her tunic.
“Listen to me, child,” Amparo said. “Go down this corridor, and look for a bin. Make sure no one sees you when you ditch the bracelet, then keep walking. When you get tired, sit down somewhere and act like you’re waiting for somebody. I’ll find you later. Got that?”
Alonza nodded.
“Then go.” Amparo pushed her toward the stream of people.
Alonza darted among the forest of trousered legs, and was almost struck in the face by an arm swinging a small bag. There was no clear path through the throng. She slowed her pace, but kept going, breaking into a sprint whenever a space opened up, then slowing down again.
Amparo had sent her after the woman whose satchel they had taken. Alonza had gone up to the woman to distract her while Amparo got ready to grab the stranger’s bag, but this time something had gone wrong. Amparo had moved too quickly, knocking the woman to the floor. The woman had tried to get up and had struck Amparo in the knee, and then Amparo hit her over the head with the pouch full of small stones and pebbles she usually carried in case she had to stun somebody from behind with a quick blow. Alonza remembered her mother standing over the woman’s still body, looking angry and then frightened.
Sometimes Amparo just grabbed a duffel or a bag from her target right away. Sometimes she waited nearby while Alonza pleaded with the mark for directions to a gateway or whimpered that she was lost and couldn’t find her mother, and then Amparo swiped the bag while her mark was still talking to Alonza. Once in a while, Amparo was able to back someone into a corner and threaten her victim into giving up an identity bracelet and personal code before knocking the mark out with a drug implant slapped against an arm. That kind of job was riskier, but often more rewarding.
“Always pick somebody smaller than you who looks nervous and afraid,” Amparo had explained to a couple of her younger friends who were visiting a few nights ago. “Best luck I’ve had is with students who look like it’s their first time away from home, or with old people. They’re so scared of getting hurt that they’ll give you their codes as soon as you ask.”
Alonza thought of the time when her mother had come back to their room with three necklaces and two jackets bought with the credit and codes of a stolen identity bracelet.
Usually Amparo might be able to make one or two purchases before a victim came to and reported a bracelet stolen, but there had been more loot that time. Amparo had been in the middle of her sixth transaction when she had seen that funny look in the merchant’s eyes that told her that her stolen credit was now blocked and that a security guard was on the way.
Always know when to run: Amparo had often told her that.
She had gone far enough by now. Alonza looked back; she could no longer see the place where she and her mother had been. There was a recycling bin to her right, but too many people were loitering near the shiny metal receptacle. She turned away and kept going until the corridor branched into two more long gated hallways. People were lining up at the gates for the suborb flights.