I won’t make that communication, he thought weakly. I won’t admit defeat and return home. I’ll die in Ciccikalk first. Better a fool dead trying than a living failure. Yet he retained enough sense to realize how foolish that declaration sounded. If something did not happen very soon he knew he would send that communication. He would abandon the absurdity that had bothered him since Learning Time, and return placidly to his proper home and work.

The Thranx in front of him was exceedingly well dressed. His body vest and neck pouch were woven of rich but unostentatious imported fabrics. His chiton was just turning from blue-green to violet. The inlays on his upper and lower abdomen were alternating insets of blue and silver metal arranged in simple patterns. Everything about his posture and attire bespoke intelligence, breeding, and wealth.

There was a slight bulge in the elder’s neck pouch. Probably carries a fat packet of credit chits in there, Ryo thought coldly. A nice, heavy roll of eighty-credit pieces that he can boast about to the less fortunate. The elder’s credit stick would be useless to Ryo, of course, but the loose chits might be enough to buy him a one-way passage to Hivehom.

But how? He couldn’t beg an eighth fraction of a chit here in a public facility and certainly not eight hundred. Talk to him, quick, before he goes on his way, came the sudden crazy thought! Ask him for directions, for sympathy, ask anything so long as it will get him over here. No, over there, behind that great pillar, out of sight.

A quick blow to the neck just beneath the skull, enough to knock him out and if you break his b-thorax, so what? Parading about the terminal as if he owned it! Does he have any dreams? Doubtful, that. Probably inherited his wealth from the maximum bequest allowed by law. Doesn’t deserve it anyway, has no real use for it. Unlike those of us who still have the courage to dream, even if such dreams are unhealthy and involuntary because they drive us, compel us, force us—

“Excuse me, sir,” he found himself saying politely, “I wonder if I might talk with you a moment?”

“Most certainly, friend.” The voice was perfectly modulated, an imperceptible blend of whistles, clicks, and syllables. A voice accustomed to conversing in High, not Low, Thranx. Not like us simple country folk, thought Ryo.

“I’m new in the hive.”

“I can tell that,” the elder said sympathetically.

I’ll bet you can, Ryo thought grimly. In a few moments you’ll be spared the necessity of thinking.

“Just over here, sir, if you would be that kind. I have my map there.” He pointed to the huge pillar. Around them modules whined and people talked loudly, intent on their own business. It would only take a second, just a second, and no one would notice. “It’s with my luggage.”

“I’d be happy to assist you, youth.” The elder dipped antennae politely. “Let’s have a look at your map.”