"Every time you've ever needed an excuse for... " He stopped himself. He refused to start the fight.

"Let's don't fight, Tommy. We should be friends. Oh. Speaking of friends. Patrick was killed just last week. He went out after dark. It was so sad. Nobody can figure out what made him do it."

"Patrick?"

"That red-haired boy you were friends with the year before you... You enlisted. I think his last name was Medich. He was living with his mother."

He didn't remember a Patrick, red-haired, Medich, or otherwise.

He did not belong here. Even the memories were gone. He had changed. The kid who had lived with this woman was dead. He was an impostor pretending to be her son.

She was bravely playing the game, trying to be his mother. He was sure there were other things she would rather be doing. Hadn't she been expecting a Harold?

Maybe that was why they tried to keep people from going. They became somebody else while they were gone.

"Mother... " His throat clamped down on the word.

"Yes?"

"I... I think I'd better go. I don't know what I came looking for. It's not here. It's not you. It's probably something that doesn't exist." The words came rumbling out, one trampling the heels of the next. "I'm not making you happy being here. So I'd better just go back."

He tried to read her face. Disappointment fought relief there, he thought.

"I'm an Old Earther when I'm out there, Mother. But I'm not when I come back here. I can see that when I'm here. I guess I should just stop remembering this place as home."

"It is your home."

"No. Not anymore. It's just the world where I was born. And this is just a place where I lived."

"And I'm just somebody you knew back when?"

"No. You're Mother. You'll always be that."

Silence existed between them for more than a minute.

Perchevski finally said, "Won't you even consider coming to my place?"

"I couldn't. I just couldn't. I belong where I am, being what I am. Useless as that is."

"Mother... You don't have to get old out there. We have a rejuvenation process... "

She showed genuine interest when she asked, "You've recovered the secrets of the immortality labs?"

"No. They're gone forever. All this process does is renew the body. It can't stop nerve degeneration. It's been around for centuries."

"How come nobody's heard about it?"

"Here? With Earth overpopulated and everybody doing their damnedest to make more babies? Some people probably know, though. Some maybe even benefit. It's not a big secret. But nobody here ever listens about Outside. Everybody here is part of this big conspiracy of blindness."

"That's not fair... "

"It's my world. I have the birthright, if I want, to point a finger and call names. Are you going to come with me?" He had begun to think about Greta. That was making him mad.

"No."

"I'll leave in the morning, then. There's no sense us carving each other up with knives of love."

"How poetic!" She sighed. "Darling, Tommy. Keep writing. I know I almost never answer, but the letters... They help. I like to hear about those places."

Perchevski smiled. "It must be in the genes. Thanks. Of course I'll write. You're my number-one lady."

Thirteen: 3048 AD

Operation Dragon, Danion

BenRabi muttered: " ‘Aljo! Aljo! Hens ilyas! Ilyas im gialo bar!... ' " Over a joint with stripped threads.

"What the hell?" Mouse asked.

"A nonsense poem. By Potty Welkin. From Shadows in a Dominion Blue. Goes:

" ‘Nuné! Nuné! Scutarrac... ' "

"Never heard of it. Think we ought to cut new threads?"

"Let's put in a new fitting. It was a political protest thing. Not one of his biggies. It was a satire on Confederation. The poem was his idea of what a political speech sounded like."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's just the way I feel this morning. Like a poem without sense or rhyme that everybody's trying to figure out. Including me. There. That's got it. What do we do next?"

Beyond Mouse, Amy consulted her clipboard. She had been staring at him with questioning eyes. "A cracked nipple in a lox line about a kilometer from here."

"Uhn." BenRabi tossed his tool kit into the electric truck, sat down with his legs dangling off the bed. Mouse joined him. Amy took off with a lurch that bounced spare fittings all over the truckbed. She had been angry and uncommunicative all week.

Moyshe had been as wary himself, as unsure. He thought she was upset because he had not tried to seduce her.

Mouse had let it be for three days. Now, whispering, he asked, "What happened between you two?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Moyshe. I know you better than that."

"Nothing. Really. That's the trouble." He shrugged, tried to change the subject. "I still can't believe we're inside a ship. I keep feeling we're back in the tunnels at Luna Command."

"What did you mean by that poem?"

"What I said. People keep trying to figure me out. So they can use me."

The ship was a lot like Luna Command, with long passageways connecting the several areas that had to be big to function.

"I don't understand," Mouse said.

"Who does? No, wait. Look. Here's Skullface, trying to get me to cross over... "

"So? He tried me too. He's trying everybody. Looks like part of their plan. I just told him I couldn't meet his price. I don't know anything that would be any good to him anyway. So what's the big deal? It's all part of the floor show. We've been through it before."

But there's something different this time, benRabi thought. I've never been tempted before. "Why was she hustling me?" He jerked his head toward Amy.

Mouse laughed wearily, lowered his head, shook it sadly. "Moyshe, Moyshe, Moyshe. Does it have to be a plot? Did the Sangaree woman burn you that bad? Maybe she likes you. They're not all vampires."

"But they'll all get you hurt," benRabi mumbled.

"What? Oh. You ever stop to think maybe she feels the same way?"

BenRabi paused. Mouse could be right. Mouse knew how to read women, and it paralleled his own impression. He wished he could assume a more casual, no-commitment attitude in his personal relationships. Mouse managed, and left the girls happy.

"Speaking of women. And her." The Sangaree woman gave them a bright gunmetal smile and mocking wave as they glided past her work party, "What to do?" She had been less obnoxious since Mouse's recreation-day demonstration, but had not abandoned her plot.

"Just wait. We're making her nervous. You think old Skullface knows about her? We might make a few points by stopping her when she moves."

"It's a notion," Mouse said, becoming thoughtful. As they rolled to a stop, he suggested, "Why don't you come by for a game tonight?"

His partner was still very much devoted to the mission, Moyshe realized.

Amy plugged the truck into a charger circuit. "That woman. Who is she?"

"Which woman?" Mouse countered, tone idle.

BenRabi scanned the area. It looked like the site of a recent elephant riot. The passage had been open to space. Liquids had frozen and burst their pipes.

"Well be here a week, Amy. How come we didn't bring any replacement pipe?"

"They're sending a Damage Control team up after lunch. They'll bring what we need. We just worry about the lox line now. It's got to be open by noon. You didn't answer my question, Mouse."

"What's that?"

"Who's that woman?"

BenRabi shrugged, said, "Maria Gonzalez, I think."

"I know her name. I want to know what's between you three."

BenRabi shrugged again. "I guess she hates spies. A lot of people have scratched us off their Christmas lists." Avoiding her eyes, he handed Mouse a wrench.

"Who does she work for?"