“They got him,” he said simply.

The others turned and looked at Ron. It was hard for Ron to tell what they were thinking. Three of the four were openly frowning. The fourth stood up and grinned.

He walked down the steps slowly toward Ron. He was tall, but very lean, spindly. His face was thin and bony. His eyes had a funny shape, almost oriental. His smile was wide, toothy. He looked friendly enough. He wore a simple outfit—vest, slacks, sandals—all sky-blue.

“They call me Timmy Jim,” he said in a mild, slightly scratchy voice. “That ain’t my real name, but it’s what everybody calls me.

Ron blinked at the leader of the Muslims for a moment. “I’m Ron Morgan.”

“I know. Know all about you. You got a good friend down in th’ market—that ol’ man Dewey. He got word to me you was in trouble. Tol’ me I could use you. Says you’re a freak with machines.”

“I fix machines,” Ron said.

Timmy Jim’s grin got even bigger. “Okay. Great. You can fix ’em for the Muslims. More’n that, you teach some of my kids how to fix ’em.”

Ron felt confused. “I didn’t know the Muslims took in white people.”

The grin vanished. “The Muslims do what I say. We ain’t takin’ you in as a member. We’re gonna let you work here, boy. We’re savin’ your ass—but only because that ol’ man down in the market claims you can help us. If you ain’t as good as he says you are, you’re goin’ right back where we got you. ’Stand?”

Ron heard himself say, “In other words, I’m a slave.”

Timmy Jim’s mouth dropped open. Then he broke into a wild, high-pitched cackling laugh. “Yeah, baby, that’s just what you are!” He laughed and laughed. The others all laughed too.

Ron stood there, feeling their scorn bite into him. Then he thought about what Dino was going to do to him. I don’t really have a choice, he realized.

It wasn’t too bad. Most of the blacks treated him fairly. But they made it clear that he was white in a world where only black can be beautiful. The Muslims had many different shades of black, though. Some of them were the tannish brown of Latin Americans. Some were so deeply black that their skin shone with an African heat. Most were some shade between those two extremes. A few even looked like Indians.

There were more old people among the Muslims, although Ron saw little of them. Like Timmy Jim, most of the Muslim warriors were Ron’s own age, or slightly older. The mechanics that Ron worked with were all in their early teens. Some of them resented taking orders from a white, but they did what Ron told them to with skill and speed.

Timmy Jim quickly set Ron up in the afternoons with even younger kids, whom he was expected to teach. They were fun. Young and eager and burning to learn about machinery. They learned fast. Ron soon had them fixing refrigerators and furnaces and even automobiles.