"I know. I'd get used to it."

"Are you sure?... "

Three young men drifted to the table. "This slut don't belong here, Spike."

Perchevski smiled gently. "You just made fuck-up number one, stud. Don't get smoked."

That startled them. One snarled, "You'll shit in your hand and carry it to China, Spike."

"May I be of assistance, Commander?"

The Toke Marine dwarfed the three youths. Adam's apples bobbed.

"I don't think so, Fire Cord. I'd say the Banner is secure. The young men have said their piece. They were just leaving."

The Toke Major glared down. At two and a quarter meters and one hundred thirty kilos he was a runt for a Star Warrior. His aide, though, was the kind they put on recruiting pamphlets meant for circulation through the Caste Lodges. He stood quietly behind his officer, filled with that still, dread equanimity that made the Star Warriors unnerving to even the most hardened human Servicemen.

"'Go you silently, Children of the Night,'" Perchevski quoted from an old song used as a battle anthem by half the youth gangs on the planet. "You, especially, talking head."

The slang had not changed much. Unlike the Outworlds, Old Earth had become locked into static patterns.

The youths understood. There had been a time when he had been one of them.

They left, strutting with false bravura. Perchevski thought he caught a glint of envy in the spokesman's eye.

"Thank you, Fire Cord." The Security man, busy talking shit to a restaurant girl, had missed the encounter.

"We share the Banner, Commander. We will be near."

"Fire Cord?"

"Sir?"

"Don't call them on their own ground."

"This is my third visit, Commander."

"Then you know." He turned to the girl again, who seemed petrified. The two huge, leathery-skinned Marines moved to the nearest empty table.

The girl finally blurted, "Why did you come back?"

"I don't know. To remind myself? Looking for something I left behind? Roots? I'm not sure. I wanted to see my mother. It's been eight years."

"Oh." She sounded envious. "I couldn't find out who my parents were. I never met anybody who did know. Not my age, anyway."

He smiled. "Do you have a name? After that scene, you'd better stay close to me or the Marines. Well have to call you something besides Hey Girl."

"Greta. Helsung. From Hamburg. Are they real Star Warriors?"

He laughed softly. "Don't let them hear you ask a question like that, Greta from Hamburg. They're as real as the stink in the sink. I'm Commander Perchevski. If you don't change your mind, I'll take you to see somebody when we get back to Geneva."

"I won't change it. Not after all the trouble I had... "

He peered at her intently. This was too breathtaking, too real, too dream-come-true for her. She did not quite believe him. He could almost hear her thinking he would use her, then dump her.

The use temptation existed. She was fresh and beautiful.

"I mean it, Greta. And don't be scared. You're young enough to be my daughter."

"I'm not a child. I'm old enough... "

"I'm aware of that. I'm not young enough. Eat your knockwurst. The meat came all the way from Palisarius."

"Oh, God! Really? I didn't know what I was ordering. I just asked for something that I didn't know what it was. Just for something different. They didn't show any prices. It must be awful expensive." She looked around guiltily.

"So don't waste it." Then, "Price doesn't matter to most people who eat here. If they couldn't afford it, they wouldn't come. Go on. Enjoy yourself."

Her tour expenses would be covered. Luna Command would pick up the tab. The Services sponsored the contests that gave Zone vacations as prizes. Some inspired social theorist had decided to fish for Old Earth's Gretas, for the one-in-a-million children who had adventure in their genes and dreams in their hearts.

The program was as successful as the normal recruiting procedures. It gave interested youths a chance to escape peer pressure. Computers watched and cross-checked the contest entries. Undoubtedly, someone would have contacted Greta if she had not come to him.

He eyed her and thanked heaven that someone out there still cared.

He felt pretty good.

Greta remained nearby throughout the tour, milking him for every detail about outside. Her former companions were not pleased, but the Fire Cord was always too close for their nerve.

Terrorism was a popular Terran sport. Toke, though, refused to be terrorized. They bashed heads. Their reputation did not make them immune, but it did force the natives to respect them.

Perchevski took the girl to the Bureau's front business office that evening. "A potential recruit," he told the night desk man, who recognized him from a holo portrait that had preceded him down. "Greta Helsung, from Hamburg. Treat her right."

"Of course, Commander. Miss? Will you take a seat? We can get the paperwork started."

"It's that easy?" she asked Perchevski.

The desk man replied, "You'll be sleeping on the moon tomorrow night, Miss. Oh. Commander. You're leaving?"

"I have an eleven-thirty to Montreal."

Greta looked at him in silent appeal.

"Will you sponsor, Commander?"

He knew he shouldn't. It meant accepting legal and quasi-parental responsibility. The Admiral would be furious... "Of course. Where do I print?" He offered his thumb.

"Here. Thank you." Something buzzed. The desk man glanced to one side, read something from a screen Perchevski could not see. "Oh-oh." He thumbed a print-lock. A drawer popped open. He handed Perchevski a ring.

"Why?" It was a call ring. It would let him know if the Bureau wanted him on the hurry up. It would give them a means of following his movements, too.

"Word from the head office. Ready, Miss Helsung?"

"Greta, I'll see you in Academy." He wrote a number on a scrap of paper. "Keep this. Call it when you get your barracks assignment." He started to leave again.

"Commander?"

He turned. Soft young arms flung around his neck. Tears seeped through his uniform. "Thank you."

"Greta," he whispered, "don't be scared. They'll be good to you."

They would. She would be treated like a princess till her studies began.

"Good-bye. Be good."

Four of the tour youths caught him outside. He had to break one's arm before they got the message. He was nearly late for his flight. He had to wait to shift to civilian clothing till after he had boarded the airbus.

North American Central Directorate showed his mother living at the same St. Louis Zone address. He went without calling first, afraid she might find some excuse for not seeing him. Though their intentions were friendly enough, their few visits had been tempestuous. She could never forgive him for "turning on his own kind."

The passage down the last light canyon was like a journey home along an old route of despair.

The playgrounds of his childhood had not changed. Trash still heaped them. Kid gangs still roamed them. Crudely written, frequently misspelled obscenities obscured the unyielding plastic walls. Future archaeologists might someday go carefully through layer after layer of spray paint, reconstructing the aberrations of generations of uneducated minds.

He labored to convince himself that this was not the totality of Old Earth.

"Some of it's worse," he murmured. Then he castigated himself for his bigotry.

Sure, most Terran humanity lived like animals. But not all. There were enclaves where some pride, some care, some ambition remained. There were native industries. Earth produced most of its own food and necessities. And there were artists, writers, and men of vision... They just got lost in the barbarian horde. They formed an unnaturally small percentage of the population.

Not only had risk-taking been drained from the gene pool, so had a lot of talent and intelligence.