That night I took Sheri to Dane Metchnikov's going-away party. Klara was there, looking even nicer in a bare-midriff pants suit. "I didn't know you knew Dane Metchnikov," I said.

"Which one is he? I mean, Terry's the one who invited me. Coming inside?"

The party had spilled out into the tunnel. I peered through the door and was surprised to find how much room there was inside; Terry Yakamora had two full rooms, both more than twice the size of mine. The bath was private and really did contain a bath, or at least a showerhead. "Nice place," I said admiringly, and then discovered from something another guest said that Klara lived right down the tunnel. That changed my opinion of Klara: if she could afford the high-rent district, why was she still on Gateway? Why wasn't she back home spending her money and having fun? Or contrariwise, if she was still on Gateway, why was she fooling around keeping barely even with the head tax by working as an assistant instructor, instead of going out for another killing? But I didn't get a chance to ask her. She did most of her dancing that night with Terry Yakamora and the others in the outgoing crew.

I lost track of Sheri until she came over to me after a slow, almost unmoving fox-trot, bringing her partner. He was a very young man -- a boy, actually; he looked about nineteen. He looked familiar: dark skin, almost white hair, a wisp of a jaw-beard that drew an arc from sideburn to sideburn by way of the underside of his chin. He hadn't come up from Earth with me. He wasn't in our class. But I'd seen him somewhere.

Sheri introduced us. "Rob, you know Francesco Hereira?"

"I don't think so."

"He's from the Brazilian cruiser." Then I remembered. He was one of the inspectors who had gone in to fish through the baked gobbets of flesh on the shipwreck we'd seen a few days earlier. He was a torpedoman, according to his cuff stripes. They give the cruiser crews temporary duty as guards on Gateway, and sometimes they give them liberty there, too. He'd come in in the regular rotation about the time we arrived. Somebody put on a tape for a hora just then, and after we were through dancing, a little out of breath, Hereira and I found ourselves leaning against the wall side by side, trying to stay out of the way of the rest of the party. I told him I had just remembered seeing him at the wreck.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Broadhead. I recall."

"Tough job," I said, for something to say. "Isn't it?"

He had been drinking enough to answer me, I guess. "Well, Mr. Broadhead," he said analytically, "the technical description of that part of my job is 'search and registry.' It is not always tough. For instance, in a short time you will no doubt go out, and when you come back I, or someone else in my job, will poke into your holes, Mr. Broadhead. I will turn out your pockets, and weigh and measure and photograph everything in your ship. That is to make sure you do not smuggle anything of value out of your vessel and off Gateway without paying the Corporation its due share. Then I register what I have found; if it is nothing, I write 'nil' on the form, and another crewman from another cruiser chosen at random does the same thing exactly. So you will have two of us prying into you."