Ben Bova - Foundation’s Friends

After three weeks, her parents eased up a little. Amy still had to come home directly from school, but they allowed her to do schoolwork with friends in the subsection after supper. News of her downfall had been replaced by gossip about Luis Horton ‘s successful run to the edge of Queens against Tom Jandow’s gang. Her friends were again speaking to her, but knew enough not to mention Shakira Lewes.

She was ruined, and it was all that woman’s fault. She dreaded the daily journeys along the strips, when she sometimes glimpsed other runners and recalled what she had lost. She could no longer hear the music of the strips, the rhythmic song in their humming that urged her to race. She was already at the end of the line; the last bit of freedom she would ever know was gone. She would become only another speck inside the caves of steel, her past glory forgotten.

Amy left the elevator at her floor with Debora, then suddenly stiffened with shock. Down the hall, Shakira Lewes was loitering outside the Women’s Personal.

“What’s she doing here?” the blond girl asked. “I don’t know.”

“I never told you,” Debora said, “but when she finished the run, she-”

“I don’t want to hear about it.” Amy took out her key when they reached the door, determined to ignore the woman. Hanging around outside a Personal was the crudest sort of behavior.

“Hello, Amy,” Shakira said.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble?” Amy snapped. “You don’t belong here.”

“But we never had our talk. This is the first chance I’ve had to find you, and I was pretty sure you’d be stopping here after school.”

Amy gritted her teeth. “Now I can’t even go and take a piss in peace.”

Shakira said, “I want to talk to you.” She lowered her voice as three women left the Personal. “Tonight, after supper, alone. “

Amy’s fingers tightened around her key. “Why should I talk to you?”

Shakira shrugged. “I’ll be at the Hempstead G-level, at the end of the Long Island Expressway. Get off and cross the strips to G-20th Street. I’ll be standing in front of a store called Tad’s Antiques-think you can find it?”

Amy felt insulted. “I know my way around. But I don’t know why I should bother. “

“Then don’t. I’ll be there by seven and I’ll wait until nine. If you don’t show up, that’s your business, and I won’t pester you again, but you might be interested in what I have to tell you.” Shakira turned and walked toward the elevator before Amy could reply.

Debora pulled her away from the Personal door. “ Are you going?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ve got to find out what she wants.”

“But your parents told you not to leave the subsection. If any of their friends see you-”

“I’m going anyway. I have to go.” She would settle matters with the young woman one way or another.

“To the edge of the City?” Debora whispered.

“She can’t do anything to me on the street with people around. Deb, you have to cover for me. I can tell my parents I’ll be at your place. I don’t think they’ll call to check, but if they do, tell them I went to the Personal. “

“If my father doesn’t get to the communo first.”

“I’ll just have to take the chance,” Amy said.

Debora let out her breath. “She may want to challenge you again. What’ll you do?”

“I’ll worry about that when I get there.” She had already made her decision. If Shakira wanted another run, she couldn’t refuse, and she’d make sure some of the boys she knew were waiting at the destination as witnesses. Whatever the risk, it was a chance to restore her lost honor.

Amy was on G-20th Street by seven-thirty. Shakira, as she had promised, was waiting in front of the antique store, which had an old-fashioned flat sign in script. There weren’t many stores in the shabby neighborhood, where the high metallic walls of the residence levels seemed duller than most, and no more than a few hundred people in the street. Amy felt apprehensive. Sections like this one were the worst in the City; only badly off citizens would live here, so close to the Outside.

Shakira was gazing at an attractive display of old plastic cutlery and cups in the store window. Inside the store, the owner had made one concession to modem times; a robot was waiting on the line of customers. “Didn’t take you long to get here,” the woman murmured.

“I shouldn’t be here at all,” Amy said. “I’m not supposed to leave my subsection, but my parents think I’m with a friend. “ For once, they hadn’t asked too many questions, and had even seemed a little relieved that she would be gone for the evening. “I told them I’d be back by ten-thirty, so say what you have to say.”

“I didn’t want to make that run, but you insisted, and I still have my pride.” Shakira looped her fingers around her belt. “Then, once I was running, old habits took over. Maybe I wanted to see if I still had my reflexes. “

“You must have had a good time bragging about it later.”

“I didn’t brag,” Shakira said. “I just met the kids and told them to go home. I said it was tough shaking you, and that you were one of the best runners who ever tailed me.”

Amy’s lip curled. “How nice of you, Shakira. You still beat me.”

“I saw what happened, why you didn’t jump back on the strip. Some runners would have risked it anyway, even with less room than you had. They would have jumped, and if a couple of people got knocked off the strip, too bad. I’m glad you aren’t that antisocial.”

“What do you want with me, anyway?” Amy asked. A few women stopped near her to look in the store window, but she ignored them; even in this wretched area, people wouldn’t be crass enough to eavesdrop.

“Well, I heard about this girl, Amy Barone-Stein, who could run the strips with the best of them. I still know a few runners, even though most of my college friends would disapprove of them. I thought you might be a little like me-restless, maybe a bit angry, wondering if you’d ever be more than a component in the City’s machine.”

Amy stepped back a little. “So what?”

“I thought you might like a challenge.”

“But you said before that you didn’t want to make that run.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Shakira said. “I mean a real challenge, something a lot harder and more interesting than running strips. It might be worthwhile for you if you’ve got the guts for it. “ Amy took another step backward, certain that the woman was about to propose a shady undertaking. “You see, I’m part of that group of Lije’s-Elijah Baley’s-the people who go Outside once a week. His son Bentley is an acquaintance of mine.”

Amy gaped at her, completely surprised. “But why-”

“There are only a few of us so far. The City gives us a little support, mostly because of Lije-Mr. Baley-but I suspect the City government thinks we’re as eccentric as everyone else does, and that we’re deluded to think we can ever settle another world.”

“Why bother?” Amy said. “The Spacers’ll never let anyone off Earth.”

“Lije left, didn’t he?”

“That was different, and they sent him back here as fast as they could. I’ll bet they didn’t even thank him for solving that murder. They’d never let a bunch of Earthpeople on one of their worlds. “

“Not one of theirs, no.” Shakira leaned against the window. “But Lije Baley is convinced they’ll allow settlers on an uninhabited world eventually-maybe sooner than we think-and that they’ll provide us with ships to get there. But we can’t settle another world unless we’re able to live Outside a City.”

Amy shook her head. “Nobody can live Outside.”