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"Well, little boy, your mother's worried about you. Seems you didn't come home after school."
"I just went — I went exploring," Jas said, using his young voice, his unintelligent voice. "I was trying to find my way home."
"Your mother asked us to run a missing persons check. You shouldn't stick your credit card into computer outlets if you want to run away," the man said.
"I don't want to run away," Jas said, longing to run away.
"Good thing," the man answered with a smile, "because you can't."
They rode in the closed compartment of the tube back to the station only a few corridors away from Jas's flat. The man didn't let go of his iron grip until Jas's mother opened the door.
"Jas, you're all right." She hugged him, acting for all the world like a parent who had been worried that her little boy might be hurt. But Jas knew what the real fear had been. Though he was already a little tired of looking into people's thoughts, it was almost reflex already, and he saw his mother's flashing memory of a visit from Hartman Tork.
"Thank you, officer," she said, tears of joy in her eyes.
"Any time, ma'am." The man left. Jas's mother closed the door. She looked at Jas in fear.
"Hartman Tork came," Jas said. She nodded, biting her lip in an exaggerated show of fear. Again, Jas was convinced for a moment that she was mad.
"Looking for you," she said. "He has proof. He said you had passed the second test, that it was proof positive —"
"Proof when I passed it?" Jas asked, surprised.
"He said it contained information that had only been fed into the computers this week, completely and totally restricted, there was no way you could have studied the information, so obviously you got the answers by —"
"But I didn't look into anyone's mind, mother. I just used logic, I just figured it out —"
"Apparently," she said bitterly, "your logic has just caught up with the latest advances in astrodynamic theory."
Jas leaned against the wall. "I thought the test went the other way. I thought that if I failed it they'd think it was proof that I'd cheated, or something else. I thought I had to get a good score."
years ago, seven–year–old Jason leading her from the park to the zoo to the dome to the cave, all the sights; and she proud, happy, following where he led, devoted to him.
But he was no longer seven years old. He was thirteen. He was frightened. He was leading his mother on an excursion that had no destination, whose only goal was escape. Where to, on a planet where there was no outside except the thin sky, no away except on starships —
Colonies.
The sign blinked. Colonies were one of the few projects the government considered important enough that they could be allowed a lighted sign.
Colonies put people on starships and sent them far beyond the reach of Mother's Little Boys. Colonies asked few questions, and answered none. To go with the Colonies was the next thing to dying.
But it was only the next thing. And when dying was the alternative... Jas stood for a moment, looking at the sign. He had the option of joining the Service. His mother didn't.
So Jas led his meekly following mother through the impressive archway leading into the plush Colonies reception room. Lighted panels on the walls depicted huge fields of a golden plant, extending to the horizon, with blue sky and a yellow sun. "Earth Colony," the panel said, in a muted, feminine whisper. "Return home again." Another panel was in motion — hundreds of tiny human beings scrambling over red rocks and black cliffs, raising a mesh of fine metal strands. The mesh began to glow. "Catch stars on Manookin," the virile masculine panel–voice said, "and bring them home as frozen light."
Bring them home — Jas laughed silently, bitterly. No one came home from a colony. A hundred years just to get established with any degree of security. Another two hundred or so before anything worth exporting could be developed in exportable quantities. And without the somec sleep, who would still be alive? None of the original colonists. None of their great–great–grandchildren, either.
"A new home," sang a chorus of children's voices, "where children have room to run and play under the sun. Carter. The children's dream planet."
And they were at the desk. "Both of you?" the woman asked.
"Just her," Jas answered. "A place where you can walk around in the open."
The woman pretended to think hard. "Capricorn? It's a yellow sun planet, just like Capitol."
Jas wasn't taken in. Obviously Capricorn was what they were pushing today. "What do they export?"
"Oh, exciting things."
"Excite me," Jas said.
"Aluminum," she said. "And platinum. And chrome."
Jas smiled wanly. "You don't do much walking in the open when you're down a mine shaft, ma'am. A planet that exports food."
"Duncan , then. Sol–type planet, they didn't even have to terraform it. She'll love it."
"Papers?"
And the papers appeared on the desk. Jas insisted that the receptionist write in Duncan as the legal contract destination, and in the preferred work space Jas wrote, "Clerical." The chances of anyone getting a clerical assignment on a colony world were very slim, but there was no harm in asking. And then the papers were in front of his mother, and she meekly picked up the pen and signed, writing the name very, very carefully, as if for the first time, though she was a legal scribe, both longhand and punching.
"You have a few minutes for good–byes," the receptionist thoughtfully said. "And then these nice men will take you with them." These nice men were two blond, blue–eyed gorillas with cheerful smiles on the front of their microcephali. Jas felt a strange lightness in his stomach, a gentle twisting that he recognized as guilt, though he had never felt much guilt before.
He turned to face his mother. She was looking at the two guards.
"You selfish bastard," she whispered gently, "I'm not crazy enough not to know what you just did."
"I had to," Jas said, not believing himself.
"I would have done it gladly if you had asked."
Jas took her hand. It was lifeless as it lay in his. "I'm sorry," he said. "I love you."
And in his mother's mind he saw his father, heard him say, "I'm sorry. I love you."
His mother's face contorted. "Selfish," she said loudly. Then she screamed: "Selfish bloody flaming Swipe bastard, you're your father's son, you're no son of mine!"
Jas had made a gesture as if to stop her when she said the word Swipe, and she noticed it. "That's right, Jas, boy, look out for number one, the old lady's going crazy, but all you care about is who can overhear us, well I can shout it out, you know —" and her voice rose to a high–pitched scream — "I can yell to the whole world that you're a stinking —"
"Sedation?" asked the receptionist. Jas didn't answer, but one of the gorillas came over with a needle anyway. Jas's mother tried to back away, but there was no retreat. The needle dug into her back, and in less than a minute she was smiling sweetly. "Hi," she said to the gorilla. "I'm Nita Worthing. Are you coming to Duncan , too?"
The gorilla smiled and patted her shoulder.
Nita turned to her son and smiled again. "Thank you, son. Good–bye. Wish me a happy voyage."
"Have a happy voyage, mother."
"It'll be happy because at the end of it, I'll have memories of you."
The gorillas led her away. She was telling them a joke as they went through the doors to the i
The receptionist leaned forward over the counter. "Your mother signed on as a volunteer, didn't she? No legal problems, right?"
Jas nodded, shook his head. "Volunteer. She's not wanted for anything."
"Don't worry about her," the receptionist said kindly. "They often react that way. The minute the papers are signed they're frantic to change their minds. Silly, isn't it? You'd think they'd just