g for a second to
offer Vye. "Parents?"

Lansor shook his head. "I was brought in after the Five-Hour Fever
epidemic. They didn't try to keep records, there were too many of us."

The man was watching him levelly over the rim of that cup. There was
something cold in that study, something which curbed Vye's pleasant
feeling of only moments earlier. Now the other set down his drink,
crossed the room. Cupping his hand under Lansor's chin, he brought up
his head in a way which stirred a sullen resentment in the younger
man, yet something told him resistance would only bring trouble.

"I'd say Terran stock--not more than second generation." He was
talking to himself more than to Vye. He loosed his hold on the boy's
chin, but he still stood there surveying him from head to foot. Lansor
wanted to squirm, but he fought that impulse, and managed to meet the
other's gaze when it reached his face again.

"No--not the usual port-drift. I was right all the way." Now he
looked at Vye again as if the younger man did have a brain, emotions,
some call on his interest as a personality. "Want a job?"

Lansor pressed his hand deeper into the foam seat. "What--what kind?"
He was angry and ashamed at that small betraying break in his voice.

"You have scruples?" The stranger appeared to think that amusing. Vye
reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in
the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the
Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could
not tell why he was.

"Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher
cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter."

Lansor blinked. This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a
dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected
some reaction.

"You may inspect my credentials if you wish."

"I believe you," Vye found his voice.

"I happen to need a gearman."

But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye
Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall. Things such as this did
not happen, except in a thaline dream, and he wasn't a smoke eater! It
was the kind of dream a man didn't want to wake from, not if he was
port-drift.

"Would you be willing to sign on?"

Vye tried to clutch reality to himself, to remain level-headed. A
gearman for an Out-Hunter! Why five men out of six would pay a large
premium for a chance at such rating. The chill of doubt c