“See them all? Sixty-four million people in Los Angeles alone. Eighteen billion in the whole world. Suppose there was a law against picking pockets? How would you enforce it?” She deftly extracted the cash from my wallet and handed the wallet back. “Get yourself a new wallet, and fast. It’ll have a place for your address and a window for a tenth-star stamp. Put your address in right away, and a stamp, too. Then the next guy who takes it can pull out the money and drop your wallet in the nearest mailbox—no sweat. Otherwise you lose your credit cards, your ident, everything.” She stuffed two hundred-odd stars in cash between her breasts, flashing me a parting smile as she turned.

“Thanks,” I called. Yes, I did. I was still bewildered, but she’d obviously stayed to help me. She could just as easily have kept wallet and all.

“No charge,” she called back, and was gone.

I stopped off at the first transfer booth I saw, dropped a half star in the coin slot, and dialed Elephant.

The vestibule was intimidating.

I’d expected a vestibule. Why put a transfer booth inside your own home, where any burglar can get in just by dialing your number? Anyone who can afford the lease on a private transfer booth can also afford a vestibule with a locked door and an intercom switch.

There was a vestibule, but it was the size of a living room, furnished with massage chairs and an autovendor. There was an intercom, but it was a flat vidphone, three hundred years old, restored at perhaps a hundred times its original cost. There was a locked door; it was a double door of what looked like polished brass, with two enormous curved handles, and it stood fifteen feet high.

I’d suspected Elephant was well off, but this was too much. It occurred to me that I’d never seen him completely sober, that I had in fact turned down his offer of guidance, that a simple morning-after treatment might have wiped me from his memory. Shouldn’t I just go away? I had wanted to explore Earth on my own.

But I didn’t know the rules!

I stepped out of the booth and glimpsed the back wall. It was all picture window, with nothing outside—just fleecy blue sky. How peculiar, I thought, and stepped closer. And closer.

Elephant lived halfway up a cliff. A sheer mile-high cliff.

The phone rang.

On the third ear-jarring ring I answered, mainly to stop the noise. A supercilious voice asked, “Is somebody out there?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Does someone named Elephant live here?”

“I’ll see, sir,” said the voice. The screen had not lit, but I had the feeling someone had seen me quite clearly.