ld find their own kind.

Yawk and Spacertown were like two separate planets. There were three
bridges spanning the river, but most of the time they went unused,
except by spacemen going back home or by spacemen going to the spaceport
for embarkation. There was no regular transportation between the two
cities; to get from Spacertown to Yawk, you could borrow a jetcar or you
could walk. Rolf walked.

He enjoyed the trip. _I'm going back home_, he thought as he paced along
the gleaming arc of the bridge, dressed in his Sunday best. He
remembered the days of his own childhood, his parentless childhood. His
earliest memory was of a fight at the age of six or so. He had stood off
what seemed like half the neighborhood, ending the battle by picking up
an older bully, much feared by everyone, and heaving him over a fence.
When he told his grandmother about the way he had won the fight she
cried for an hour, and never told him why. But they had never picked on
him again, though he knew the other boys had jeered at him behind his
back as he grew bigger and bigger over the years. "Ape," they called
him. "Ape."

But never to his face.

He approached the Yawk end of the bridge. A guard was waiting there--an
Earther guard, small and frail, but with a sturdy-looking blaster at his
hip.

"Going back, Spacer?"

Rolf started. How did the guard know? And then he realized that all the
guard meant was, are you going back to your ship?

"No. No, I'm going to a party. Kal Quinton's house."

"Tell me another, Spacer." The guard's voice was light and derisive. A
swift poke in the ribs would break him in half, Rolf thought.

"I'm serious. Quinton invited me. Here's his card."

"If this is a joke it'll mean trouble. But go ahead; I'll take your word
for it."

Rolf marched on past the guard, almost nonchalantly. He looked at the
address on the card. _12406 Kenman Road._ He rooted around in his fading
memory of Yawk, but he found the details had blurred under the impact of
five years of Mars and Venus and the Belt and Neptune. He did not know
where Kenman Road was.

The glowing street signs were not much help either. One said 287th
Street and the other said 72nd Avenue. Kenman Road might be anywhere.

He walked on a block or two. The streets were antiseptically clean, and
he had the feeling that his boots, which had lately trod in Spacertown,
were leaving dirtmarks along the street. He did not look back to see.

* *