Rob Chilson - Refuge

They were far enough from their neighbors to speak freely in low tones. “I suppose there are strong social forces to make them clean up their places,” Ariel said.

Derec thought about it, nodded. Mere laws could not have such force. “I suppose they train their kids: Clean up your places. What’ll the neighbors think?”

“The forces for conformity to social norms must be tremendous,” she said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“It makes their whole civilization possible. And are we that different?” he asked.

Ariel shook her head somberly. She had been exiled for violating some of those norms.

They were given three choices: Zymosteak, again, Sweet-and-Pungent Zymopork, and Pseudo-Chicken Casserole. Side dishes included such things as salads and fruit plates, Hearty Hungarian Goulash, Vegetable Pseudo-Beef Stew, and so on. They chose the Zymopork and the casserole, and browsed among the side dishes, almost famishing from the smell of the food around them.

“At least, seated here in the middle, we can watch the families,” Ariel said.

“Right. I was wondering if it would be acceptable to divide our dishes with each other. But see that family with the four kids-the kids are swapping around ad lib.”

“Yes-and the parents. Different side dishes come with different main courses, and they’re trading off.”

The food arrived at that point, and they wasted no more time watching others eat.

When they had finished and exited the kitchen, Derec paused, glancing around.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s still light,” he said. “It should be getting dark.”

She laughed nervously. They moved aside, out of the way, and strolled slowly toward the ways. “I know what you mean. Especially for us, since we got up well before what these people consider the dawn. But, of course, the lights will never dim.”

They rode the localway for a short distance, changed ways, and presently found themselves at a massive entrance flanked with stone lions.

“Stone!” said Ariel, sounding astonished. “I supposed they’d be plastic or something.”

“Or nothing,” said Derec. He liked libraries, though people rarely visited them on the Spacer worlds. It was simpler just to call them up and have the books transmitted over your phone.

“I suppose many apartments on Earth must be equipped to receive book transmissions,” he said.

“In higher social classes,” Ariel said wryly, and he laughed. Spacers though they were, they were not masquerading merely as Earthers, but as low-rated Earthers.

Crowds of people, as usual on Earth, swarmed up and down the ornamental steps that led up to the entry. Some sat on the steps or the balusters, talking, laughing, eating or drinking, and many reading. A group of children played on one of the lions, their book-viewers laid carefully between its paws. Inside were uniformed guards with clubs and surprisingly cheerful expressions, sober people of all ages swarming about, many of them young, and people sitting around tables. Virtually every terminal was in use.

“This must be the library’s rush hour,” Derec whispered.

With school out for the day, people off work and looking for the cheapest entertainment-it probably was.

At length they found an unused terminal and did a twenty-minute search for the information, making sure they had all they needed. Derec had a moment of doubt when he inserted his money tab into the slot. This metal tab was not unlike the credit-transfer system on the Spacer worlds. But he had no idea what formalities were employed here, or how much money there was in this account.

ACCEPTED, said the blinking transparency, and the machine tinkled a tune to let them know it was copying the information on their card.

“We’ve got it,” he said, breathing more easily. “Let’s go.”

Out of the library, down the steps, to the right. They marched more slowly than they had at the beginning of the day. Derec was as tired as Ariel looked.

“It’s been a long day,” he said hollowly.

“And we’ve come a long way,” she added.

Turn, and turn again, and they confronted a smaller marquee than one they’d seen in Old Town Sector: WILL YOU FOLLOW?

“Not tonight, honey,” said Derec vaguely. “I’m too tired.”

“We didn’t come by that, Derec,” Ariel said, gripping his arm.

“I know,” he said tiredly. “We’ve gotten turned around.”

They retraced their steps, and now couldn’t find the library. After quite a while they paused, gray-faced with weariness and strain, before a window showing dresses and hats of incredible fabrics, some of which glowed. Cheap finery. Men and women peered through windows, pointed out things they’d like but would probably never afford. Not far from them a young man in tight blue pants and silver pseudo-leather jacket, with elaborately coiffed hair, stood next to a girl who seemed much older than Ariel and who wore even tighter violet pants and a nearly transparent, slashed top. Her hair was blonde and long on one side and short and red on the other, and her eyes were cynical and hard.

This was a major thoroughfare, though it was not part of the moving way system. It ought to join to the ways somewhere, but didn’t seem to. They had no idea which way to go.

“Just like a couple of Transients,” said Derec glumly. “We can’t be far from the ways, but we could spend an hour blundering around looking for them.”

The youth with the tough expression and the silvery jacket turned toward them.

“Transients, eh?” he said. He looked them up and down. The hard-featured young woman looked at them curiously also.

Derec braced himself.

“That way two blocks, take the up ramp,” the young tough said courteously, and the hard-featured young woman looked sympathetically at them.

“Thank you,” said Derec, and Ariel, as startled as he, echoed him.

Their rescuers had forgotten them before they were out of sight, but Derec and Ariel remembered them all the way home.

The section kitchen had become a familiar place by the time of their third meal, next morning. Much of the shock of enormous rooms, enormous numbers of loud talking Earthers, of being ignored amid mobs, was gone. After breakfast, out into the monotonous every-day of the ways, they rode south toward the edge of the sprawling megalopolis. Finally, in a section called Mattese, they found the driving school they sought.

They had chosen it because it was a “private” school. Though regulated by the government, it counted as a luxury, and one paid for the privilege of learning here, a concept that bemused the Spacers.

“Yes, please?”

The receptionist was not the robot the term called to their minds, but a middle-aged woman-though Earthers aged fast by Spacer standards; she was probably quite young, perhaps no more than forty-five or fifty.

“Derec and Ariel Avery,” Derec said apologetically, trying again to imitate the Earth dialect.

“Oh, yes, new students. You’re a bit early, but that’s good-you have to do your forms.”

They thought they’d already done the forms over the communo, but took the papers and sat down. These forms were simple and asked primarily how much experience they’d had with automobiles and something called “models.”

“Can that mean what I think it does?” Ariel asked. Derec could only shrug.

They had sweated over the application last night, for it asked for their schooling, but R. David had given them the names of schools in the City they might have gone to. They hoped the driving school would be lax in checking up. Of course, sooner or later their imposture would be detected, but even one day, they calculated