Gordette was sitting in The Cave, nursing a mug of the stuff that passed for coffee at Moonbase. It was midday, and the cafeteria was filling up with the lunchtime crowd. But no one sat at Gordette's table. No one came near it; a ring of empty tables surrounded him.

Pariah, he said to himself. That's the word. For days he's been trying to recall the term. At last it came swimming up from his subconscious. Pariah. Outcast. Murderer. Assassin. That's me and they all know it.

It would've been better if Doug had let me die, Gordette told himself. He says he trusts me, but none of these others do. They all know about me now, or they think they do. And they all hate me.

Then he saw Paula Liebowitz carrying a tray in both hands, making her way through the crowded tables, heading straight toward him. She walked with a determined stride and an odd, tenacious expression on her face, right up to Gordette's table.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked, almost truculently.

Gordette spread his arms to take in all the empty chairs. "Be my guest."

Liebowitz plopped her laden tray on the table and took the chair next to Gordette.

"Is it true? Did you really try to kill Doug Stavenger?"

Gordette couldn't make out what was in her eyes. It wasn't anger, exactly. But it wasn't tenderness, either.

"It's true," he said flatly.

"You're a hired assassin? A hit man?"

He puffed out a sigh. "When I first met you I was trying to sabotage Doug's suit."

"Son of a bitch," Liebowitz said. She wasn't calling Gordette a name, he realized; merely expressing her emotions.

He tried to shrug. "That's what I was sent here to do."

"And when you invited me to dinner, that was part of it? You were going to try to use me to help you kill Stavenger?"

"No," he answered slowly. "I invited you to dinner because I liked you."

"Yeah. Sure."

"Even trained assassins need some human companionship now and then," Gordette told her.

"Don't try to make a joke out of this!"

"It's no joke, believe me."

"Why should I believe anything you say?"

"Why do you ask me, then?"

"I liked you," Liebowitz said. "I was even thinking about going to bed with you."

"Get your kicks with a black man, huh?"

She frowned with puzzlement. "What?"

"I'm black."

"And I'm a Jew. What's that got to do with anything?"

Gordette thought it over for a moment. "Nothing. Nothing's got anything to do with anything."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," he said, getting irritated with her cross-examination. "So I liked you and you liked me. So what?"

"Stavenger's letting you stay here? You're still working with him?"

Gordette nodded.

"He trusts you? After you tried to kill him?"

"I told him the story of my life," Gordette said, acid in each word, "and he decided he's gonna reform me. Start me a new life here on the Moon, where everybody loves me and trusts me."