"No, it's owned by the government of Orient IV. Although GalacTech leases a good quarter of it."

"How long does it take to get to Orient Station from Rodeo?"

"Oh, usually about a week. You'll probably be stopping there yourself quite soon, if only to pick up extra equipment and supplies, when you're sent out on your first construction contract."

The boy was looking more outer-directed now, perhaps thinking about his first interstellar trip. That was better. Leo relaxed slightly.

"I'll be looking forward to that, sir."

"Right. If you don't cut your foot, er, hand off meanwhile, eh?"

Tony ducked his head and grinned. "I'll try not to, sir."

And what was that all about? Leo wondered, watching Tony sail out the door. Surely the boy could not be thinking of trying to strike out on his own? Tony had not the least conception of what a freak he would seem, beyond his familiar Habitat. If he would only open up a little more . . .

Leo shrank from the thought of confronting him. Every downsider staff member in the Habitat seemed to feel they had a right to the quaddies' personal thoughts. There wasn't a lockable door anywhere in the quaddies' living quarters. They had all the privacy of ants under glass.

He shook off the critical thought, but could not shake off his queasiness. All his life he had placed his faith in his own technical integrity—if he followed that star, his feet would not stumble. It was ingrained habit by now; he had brought that technical integrity to the teaching of Tony's work gang almost automatically. And yet . . . this time, it did not seem to be quite enough. As if he had memorized the answer, only to discover the question had been changed.

Yet what more could be demanded of him? What more could he be expected to give? What, after all, could one man do?

A spasm of vague fear made him blink, the hard-edged stars in the viewport smearing, as the looming shadow of the dilemma clouded on the horizon of his conscience. More . . .

He shivered, and turned his back to the vastness. It could swallow a man, surely.

*      *      *

Ti, the freight shuttle copilot, had his eyes closed. Perhaps that was natural at times like this, Silver thought, studying his face from a distance of ten centimeters. At this range her eyes could no longer superimpose their stereoscopic images, so his twinned face overlapped itself. If she squinted just right, she could make him appear to have three eyes. Men really were rather alien. Yet the metal contact implanted in his forehead, echoed at both temples, did not have that effect, seeming more a decoration or a mark of rank. She blinked one eye closed, then the other, causing his face to shift back and forth in her vision.