They'd been in Alva City almost six months now, and he hated it. Their neighborhood was a better one, safer, more civilized, but for that very reason, he didn't fit in and hadn't been able to make any friends. The only guys who seemed to understand him were his enemies. What after-school and weekend work he could find — for his mother still insisted on that — was so boring compared to the spaceport that he spent most of his energy trying to figure out ways to get out of doing it. The only high spot in his life was martial arts training with his mother, and if that wasn't weird, what was? Even there, she admitted he was ready for a true master, but if she was trying to find one for him, her efforts were invisible to him.

Then, last week, he'd accidentally overheard something that gave him hope, from Biggy Biggars, of all people. According to Biggy, by law, at fifteen a guy could get a work tag, legally quit school, and get out on his own, like an adult. And Spike's fifteenth birthday was less than a month away.

According to the counselor, getting the tag wasn't quite as simple as Biggy believed. Still, it was possible. The hardest part would be getting his mother to agree. For a guy with a family, the parents or legal guardians had to give consent. At least he had a mother. If he'd been an orphan, he'd be under Martian planetwide childcare rules, which were a lot more strict since that scandal in '55 with the priest, and he'd be stuck for another two years at least.

Now he was trying to think of a way to convince his mother to vouch for him. If he approached her the right way, she'd probably do it without fuss. It wasn't as if she liked having him around that much. He'd lie and tell her he planned to work here in Alva City, but the second he had that tag, he'd go straight to Tharsis. He only hoped Mr. T would give him his job back, after the way his mother had dragged him off without so much as calling the man and explaining.

The sounds of the emergency zipcraft and trucks was louder now, so loud that they interfered with his self-absorption. He realized he was walking toward them. Whatever was going on, it was right in his neighborhood. When he looked up, he could see the remnants of a thick plume of smoke being scattered by the backblast of a zipcraft braking. Wow. That looks like it's right over my building.

Even then, he had no premonition. He assumed the fire was somewhere in the neighborhood, maybe at worst on the same block, and his only thought was to hope it wasn't where someone lived that he knew. He didn't even worry about it spreading, not with all the city vehicles buzzing around. Not until he turned the corner and almost ran into the backs of the crowd did he realize that they were staring at his apartment building.

Mom! His mother had planned to stay home today. She might be in trouble in there. He couldn't tell where the fire was, exactly. The smoke was too thick, shrouding three or four floors, but it was definitely near his floor. Dropping his shoulder, pushing and scrambling, he shoved his way to the front of the crowd, cursing every second he was delayed.

When he finally reached the police line, what he saw made the universe tilt in his mind.

At first it didn't seem too bad. There was debris scattered on the ground, but not a lot of it. Through the smoke, in thin patches torn by the breeze, he could see that only a small part of the building had been affected, only one floor, but pieces of the entire wall were torn away, baring steel supports. His floor. His apartment. And on the ground near the silent ambulance was one body on a stretcher. It was covered, face to toes, with a black plastic sheet, but one arm had fallen out from under the plastic. He knew the arm, the hand — so like his own — even the bracelet on the wrist.

That can't be my mother. The shape under the plastic wasn't her shape, wasn't the shape of anything human. But the arm was human. Hers. Scraps of the pink blouse she'd been wearing this morning when he'd left for school were still clinging around the elbow.

He was staring, trying to get himself to comprehend what he was seeing, when he heard someone say his name. He didn't recognize it as his name, just as he didn't feel the people jostling him on either side. Then hands caught his arm and tried to pull him away.

"No!" he shouted, and yanked free. He started to plunge under the police line, but a big cop blocked his way, and the hands had caught his shirt and were trying to pull him backward. Distantly, he heard a woman's voice, That's his mother, Officer, and the cop say something back. Neither affected him. Stalled, stunned, he went down to his knees. Mom?

The woman was trying to pull him to his feet. He knew who she was now. He recognized her by the smell of garlic. Mrs. Hendry from the first floor. She kept talking to him and pulling at him, trying to make him stand, to make him leave.

Numb, he finally gave up and rose, let her turn him, let her lead him away. The crowd parted as they passed. No pushing and shoving to get away from there.

As they broke through the rear of the crowd to the open street, he began to hear some of Mrs. Hendry's words. She'd always been a silly woman, and now she kept telling him, Everything will be all right, baby.

"Don't call me baby," he said.

"It's all right. You're in shock."

"Shut up!" He collapsed on the edge of the sidewalk and put his head in his hands. Somehow he had to make this fit into his mind.

Mrs. Hendry, amazingly, did shut up. She sat beside him and put her plump arms around him, but she didn't get upset when he shrugged her away. Finally he said, "Was that really my mother?"

"Yes, dear. It was. The landlord identified her for the police."

At least she was honest. "What happened?"

As if he'd opened a door, she began to babble. "The fire officer thinks it was a gas leak of some kind. But I don't see how that can be. I mean, the landlord had an inspection team out here just last month, and I know they did your apartment, too! But they say they don't know what else it could have been. They say your mother went out somewhere, and what they think is that when she came home, she opened the door and caused a spark. But they don't know. They don't know anything. It's a miracle no one else was killed! If this had happened a few hours later, when everyone was home from work, it would have been even worse. Oh, but not worse for you," she said suddenly, giving him a hug.

He felt abruptly sick. The shock was reaching him from somewhere deep inside, and the combination of Mrs. Hendry's garlicky smell and sticky sympathy was making his stomach twist. "I'm leaving."

To his surprise, her hands closed on his shoulder and held him there. "You can't! Where would you go?"

"I don't know," he admitted. Just away. I want to get away.

"I know you can't think, baby," she said, her grip becoming a caress. "I understand. This has been a terrible shock to you. But you can't just wander off. Come inside. Come on, we'll go to my sister's place. It's right up the street. You can stay with us until your relatives can come and get you."

"I don't have any relatives."

"Sure you do. Everyone has relatives. The police will find them for you. Come on with me. Get away from all this smoke."

But he didn't have relatives. He knew that for a fact. With a cold certainty, he knew something else for a fact. When the police found out he didn't have anyone to take him in, they'd put him in a city-run home, or an orphanage. If there was any place in the world worse than this neighborhood, that was it.

He had to get away. Now, fast, before the police came looking for him and Mrs. Hendry. "All right," he said, and started to rise. As he expected, she let go of him so she could push herself to her feet. She was, after all, a fat, elderly woman. As soon as he was free, he bolted. He heard her call after him, yelling his name, but he kept running and didn't look back. Using alleys, jumping fences, he made sure he couldn't be followed, and ran until he couldn't run any more.

His roundabout route had taken him to a park about six blocks north of his school. The destination of a lot of kids cutting classes, it was full of places to hide. He found one and sat there, arms on his raised knees, head down, dragging in breath after breath, and trying to think.

For a long time, all he could think about was his mother. Not as he'd known her. That would come later, and hurt more. At that moment, he could only think that she was gone. It was impossible that he'd never see her again, but it was true. He felt as if a great hole had opened up inside himself, and he had no idea why or how or what would be the result of it. He didn't have a mother. He didn't have a home. He had nothing but the clothes he was wearing. Everything he knew was gone.

It simply wasn't possible.

As the sun started to set, he came to a kind of acceptance by simply pushing it all to a corner of his mind, to be dealt with later. At the moment, he had to deal with more urgent matters. He was hungry, but what money he had in his pockets wouldn't get him a meal. That wasn't a large problem. He'd stolen food before, back in the District, and he hadn't forgotten how. He was exhausted, but there were plenty of places here in the park where he could sleep without being found. The most urgent problem was what he would do tomorrow. The police would be looking for him. Mrs. Hendry would give them the direction he'd gone. He had to find a place where he could disappear. He couldn't just run aimlessly. He had to think of somewhere to go.

But with no friends and no real roots, there was only one place he could imagine going. The one place he'd ever really considered a home since his father died. Tharsis Spaceport.

An hour later, as it started to get dark, wearing a stolen raincoat with stolen food stuffed in all the pockets, he was on the highway with his thumb out, hitching a ride to Tharsis.

Rafe would have called it a clean kill. When you have to make a hit, make it clean. By that, I mean hit only the person you're aiming at. Don't take down any innocent bystanders.

But, he'd said, if you do that, isn't it obvious that it was a hit, even if it looks like an accident?

It had taken him more than five weeks to carry out the whole plan. Unable to be sure of finding all of his mother's tell-tales — those things that any cautious person planted to tell them that someone had trespassed on their territory — he'd used some of his new influence to arrange for a gas inspection, and he'd gone in immediately behind the team to plant the explosive. After that, what little time he could spare from his syndicate work had been spent here, in an apartment across the street, getting information with borrowed surveillance equipment. Barbara Spiegel had had no routine, but her neighbors did. He waited patiently to push the button until that one day when all came together: he was there, she was there, her neighbors were all out. Clean.

He left to get Spike as soon as he heard the explosion. He expected to find him in school, and for the first time was irritated by the kid's habit of cutting classes. He didn't worry when he couldn't find him right away, since he didn't know Spike's haunts in Alva City. But when an afternoon and the following morning spent searching didn't find him, his concern grew sharp, especially when, questioning the neighbors, he met Mrs. Hendry and she told him how Spike had run away.

He didn't share Mrs. Hendry's sanguine belief that the police would find Spike soon. But just in case they did, he got names of Child Welfare officers from Crys, contacted them, and convinced them to tell him when Spike came into their hands. For himself, he assumed Spike would avoid cops, in which case there were only two logical places where he might run, to his friends in the District or to the Tharsis Spaceport.

He checked both. Since the party at Mao Yenrai's several months ago, his apprenticeship to Kito was an open secret, and the kids that Spike had once called friends were willing and even eager to help him. But they weren't able to. Spike hadn't contacted any of them yet. Leaving them with their promise to call him if Spike showed up, he checked the spaceport, including questioning the man called Doohan, who had arrived in port the day before. No one had seen him, and everyone was still pretty angry with him.

He now began to really worry. Where was the kid?

For a person who knew his way around, Tharsis Spaceport had as many hiding places as a dog had fleas, and Spike knew his way around better than anyone. His first night, when he'd broken in under the fence, he chose the old hangar where Doohan had once berthed his antique Bell. Few people used the hangar, and no one ever seemed to clean it. He made himself a hollow out of storage crates in the rafters and floored it with scrap wood. Then he ate until he was full and curled up to rest. Exhausted, he dropped off almost at once, but the sleep didn't last long. Dreams woke him, bad ones which he forgot as soon as his eyes opened. The third time he woke, he gave up and sat, his back against a steel girder, his legs drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, chin on his knees, shivering in the light raincoat. Tomorrow, the first thing he needed to do was steal a blanket.

Everything caught up with him at once then — his mother being gone, the malformed shape of what had been left of her, the police looking for him, and being a cold, hungry, scared 14-year-old kid in hiding with no idea how he was going to survive to be 15. With no one there to see him, he let his head drop and began to sob until his shoulders were shaking so hard he gripped his legs harder to stop them. The breakdown only lasted a few minutes. He had his pride, after all, and got himself under control as quickly as he possibly could. During the rest of the hours of that night, he had more time than he needed to finally face his loss and remember his mother. But he shed no more tears.

The next day he began the life of a fugitive at the spaceport. Most things he needed, he could get at night, when traffic was slower and he was less likely to be seen. The most difficult thing at first was food. He didn't want to vandalize a vending machine, because that might make someone suspicious, but finally he had to. The haul kept him going for a week and a half, and after that, he disguised himself and picked pockets in the lobby, using the booty to catch a bus to a nearby grocery, then sneaking back in after dark. Everything else he needed, bedding and clothing mostly, he got by using his light fingers to open freight cases, and water, of course, was at any hangar he happened to be in. Cigarettes were no problem, either, since picking pockets inevitably yielded plenty of those. He created a stocked hiding place in every hangar, just in case, and started feeling both safe and clever.

His biggest concern was being seen by someone he knew, which was most of the weekend workers, so during the weekend he laid low. The only person he saw who he knew was Doohan, who berthed the Bell for a few days shortly after he got there, and he thought he saw Vicious once. But at that time he'd gone almost two days without eating, so he assumed it had been a hallucination. He wished it had been real, because if anyone could tell him how to elude the police and survive on the streets, it would be Vicious. He toyed with the idea of trying to find his friend, but decided it wasn't worth the risk. Instead, he settled down with his rabbit's existence, planning to wait until he was sure the hunt for him had died down. Then he'd see Mr. T and hope for the best.

Crys watched Vicious pace as he spoke into the phone, his face set like stone but his eyes blazing. Spike had been missing for three weeks, and each day of that time, Vicious had grown more and more tense. He'd gone everywhere he knew the boy had once hung out, not once or twice but many times. He'd questioned everyone who knew him, again and again. He'd bribed and threatened Child Welfare clerks and cops. Finally he'd even compromised his own integrity enough to mix his personal life with his syndicate business and gotten some of his men to look as well. All for nothing. He was receiving yet another negative report, and while the man on the phone might not realize it from Vicious' cool tone, she could see he was going to crack at any time.

She couldn't bear to watch him any more, and she went into the bathroom, closed the door, and started a bath. While the water filled, she wiped steam from the mirror and stared at herself.

You know he killed his mother. He won't say it, but you know it anyway, don't you? He hadn't lied to her, she was sure. He'd said his mother was killed in an explosion at her apartment, and that the authorities believed it to have been caused by a gas leak. But she'd read the newspaper account, a tiny article tucked away on page 8 which gave almost no more details than he had, except for one. There had been only one fatality. Plenty of injuries, all minor, but only one person died. She'd been a Hyena, and like a syndicate man and a cop, she also knew the concept of a clean kill.

She hadn't wanted to believe it, and she'd been very careful not to ask him any more about it or press him with any questions. She didn't want to know the answer to those questions. If she did, if she forced herself to face them, she wasn't sure she could live with him any more.

Now, staring into her own eyes, she asked herself, Are you that besotted?

The answer, of course, was yes. Not the right answer, but the true one. She'd asked herself the same question while, frigid with disgust at herself, she'd guided him through that party at Mao Yenrai's, and again when she finally figured out why he'd been invited. After that party, although they still lived in the same apartment, they had luxuries they'd never had before. He was gone more, and when they went out, people looked at him differently, with a new respect and even with fear. The last time he'd taken her out to dinner, they went to a place where she'd often longed to go but could never afford, where the hostess had taken them to a good table, the waiter treated them like royalty, and no bill had ever been presented. He was becoming Kito, and the thought made her ill.

But when she came out of her bath, wrapped in a robe he'd bought for her, and saw him lying on the bed, one arm flung over his eyes, she knew she wasn't ready to leave him now. He was suffering. The lines of it were on his face, and she simply couldn't resist the urge to want to smooth them away. But she couldn't help him. There was nothing she could do to find the boy that he wasn't already doing, and every idea she had, she'd already given him.

She sat beside him on the bed. "You'll find him," she said.

After a second, he said harshly, "I wish I had your confidence."

"You will. Because you'll never stop looking. But it may take a long time."

"He may be dead by now," he snapped. Then he sat up, although still without looking at her. "No. If he were dead, I'd know it. I'd feel it."

"Then he's not. And you said yourself, he's smart, tough, and resourceful. He'll take care of himself. It's not as if he's a child now. He's been on the streets."

He nodded, then swallowed hard. "If I believed in God, I would think this was some kind of cosmic justice."

It was out before she could stop it. "You did kill her, didn't you?"

He nodded, as simply as if she'd asked him if he had grey eyes. "It was the only way."

She wanted to scream, to cover her ears and just scream so she couldn't hear any more. Instead, in a wooden voice, she said, "The only way to do what? Get Spike away from her?"

"Yes. She drew the line herself, I didn't. She attacked me, she made herself my enemy."

And in the syndicate, if you have an enemy, you kill him before he kills you. This was how he lived and how he thought. Nothing in his past had ever taught him another way, and nothing she could do now was going to change him. "Well, I guess you won, then," she said, grieving. Not for Barbara, who had drawn her death on herself by what she'd done and, more importantly, what she hadn't done. She grieved for Barbara's sons, both of them, the one now reaching for her hand, seeking comfort for a pain she could do nothing to relieve, and the young one somewhere out there, alone and afraid.

"It's not winning, when you lose what you fought for," he said. Then, "Why are you crying?" When she didn't answer him, he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

Spike had been at the spaceport for more than a month when he curled up to sleep one night and woke up the next morning to the smell of cigarette smoke and the sight of Doohan calmly sitting there, in his hiding place, watching him.

Doohan had come in again a few days before, and this time Spike had taken a chance when the old man was out and slipped down to see if the Swordfish was inside the Bell's cargo hold. It wasn't, and, disappointed, he'd taken no other risks. He was sure he'd left no sign that he'd been there, and that had been days ago, so Doohan's appearance was a complete surprise.

He came awake with a rush. His reflexes were good, and within a second of opening his eyes and seeing Doohan sitting there, he was starting to bound to his feet and get out. Doohan, however, was even faster. He snagged a fistful of Spike's shirt and dragged him back down, snarling, "Forget that! I have some questions I want to ask you."

"Well, let me go and ask them, then," Spike said, regaining his cool.

Doohan just grinned.

"At least let me get a cigarette."

"Maybe later. I'm stronger than you, kid, but I'm sure you're a hell of a lot faster. You awake yet?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Then let me ask you my first question, something for you to think about. If I let you go now, and you go tearing out of here, where are you going to go once I've let the boss know you're here?"

"You'd tell him?"

"Don't look so hurt. That doesn't work on me. Yes, I'd tell him. But I have this feeling you don't have anywhere else to go. Right?" When Spike didn't answer, he gave him a shake. "Am I right?"

"You're an old man who ought to be minding his own business!" Spike snapped back.

Doohan chuckled. "Living like a rat doesn't seem to have hurt your spirits any. I figured. Now that we got that settled, I'll give you two choices. One, I drag your ass down out of here and over to the office, and let that Greek fella decide what he should do with you. Two, you give me your word you won't run off, I let you go, and we sit here and discuss this like men. Which is it?"

Spike pretended to think it over. "Mr. T might just give me my job back."

Doohan snorted.

"OK, choice number two, then."

"You give me your word? Go on, say it."

Spike made himself say the words. "All right. My word, I won't run off until we've had this little talk you want."

"Good enough." The big fist uncurled from his shirt, and Spike sat back again with a bump. "First, how long have you been here?"

"I said I wouldn't run off. I didn't make any promises about answering your questions."

"Don't be stupid. What harm is it going to do you to answer that one? Save your energy for lying about the important ones. I'm guessing you've been here since your mother got killed. Is that right?" He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook two out, and handed one to Spike.

They lit up, and with the first pull, Spike felt himself calming down. If Doohan was planning to turn him over to the cops, he'd have already done it. For sure, being Doohan, he wouldn't offer him a cigarette. He sat for a moment, just enjoying the smoke, and finally said, "Yeah. I've been here since then."

"Don't you have any relatives that want you?"

"I don't have any relatives, period."

Doohan grunted. "How old are you?"

"None of your business."

"It's my business, because right now I'm sheltering some kind of fugitive."

Despite himself, alarm made him blurt, "The cops talked to you?"

"The cops have been here, and a bunch of other folks, too. You've got a lot of people looking for you, and I have to admit, none of them looked like loving uncles or cousins."

He could imagine what they looked like. Cops, and suits with the ticket to some orphanage prison. He said, "You turn me over to any of them, I'll..."

"Save your threats. In the first place, you don't scare me. You're a kid, and you weigh maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. In the second place, I ain't going to turn you in to anybody."

"You aren't?"

"Don't sound so surprised. Why should I? It's none of my business, and anyway, I never have gotten along too well with authority types."

Remembering some of the yelling matches from when he'd worked here, Spike grinned. "I can vouch for that."

"So what do you intend to do? Just hide here until the heat dies down, then slink out and ask that Greek fella for your old job back?"

Put that way, it did sound a little stupid. Spike just shrugged.

Doohan said, "Thermopolis isn't exactly your friend any more, you know. First you leave him in the lurch, without a word — no, don't fire up, I'm sure that wasn't your fault. But then he has the cops and the Child Welfare people bugging him, and that really pissed him off. I don't think he's going to exactly welcome you with open arms."

Spike hid his dismay and just shrugged again. "Then I'll think of something else. I have friends in the District."

"You go back to the District, you'll end up a thief, or worse."

"You got any better ideas?" Spike snapped.

"Yeah, one. Although whether it's better or not is questionable. You can come to work for me."

Spike almost swallowed his cigarette. "For you? You mean it?"

"I see you like the idea."

Regaining his composure, Spike said, "Well, it's got to be better than sleeping up here."

"Maybe not. I don't live in the lap of luxury, and I'll work you harder than they ever thought of working you here. And you may have noticed I don't have the world's kindest disposition. Furthermore, most people don't like living on Earth."

Earth. That was about as far away from Mars as he could ever hope to get. "I've never been to Earth," he said musingly.

Doohan laughed. "You've never been anywhere. But you'll go places if you come with me, I can promise you that. I can't promise you a regular pay, but I will promise you shelter and three meals a day, and plenty of hard work."

"On ships?"

"Yeah. What did you think, I'd have you milking cows?"

"Sweeping floors, more like."

"You'll do that. But you'll work on ships, too. Including the Swordfish." He gathered himself to rise. "You think on it. I leave tonight, so you have until then."

Spike jumped up with him. "I don't have to think about it," he said, holding out a hand. "I'm in."

Doohan stared at his hand for a moment, then took it in a crushing grip. "We're probably both going to regret this."

"Probably," Spike said, and grinned.