She smiled. “I see. Fascinating. One doesn’t think of the Kith as having a history. You’ve always simply been.”
“Oh, we do, Freelady. Maybe we have more history and tradition than anybody else.” He considered. “Or maybe it’s just that we pay more attention to what we have, study and talk about it more. Another thing that helps hold us together, keep us what we are.”
Her gaze dwelt on him through the smoke, above the sputtering flames. “And it’s an intellectual activity, isn’t it?” she said. “You Kithfolk are a brainy lot.”
His cheeks grew warm. He concentrated on his cooking. “You flatter us, Freelady. We’re not exactly Star-Frees.”
“No, you’re more whole.” She jumped back toward impersonality; it was safer. “I did do research on you before leaving Earth. Spacefolk always had to be intelligent, with quick reactions but stable personalities. It was best they not be too big, physically, but they must be tough. Dark skin gives some protection against soft radiation, though I suppose genetic drift, happenstance, has been at work, too. Over generations, those who couldn’t fit into your difficult life dropped out. The time factor, and the widening cultural gap, made recruitment more and more unlikely, till now it’s essentially impossible. And we have the race of starfarers.”
“Not really, Freelady,” he protested. “Anybody who wants to can build a ship and flit away. But it’s a big investment, of lifetime still more than capital, for small profit or none; so nobody does. We, though — we never attempt the kind of voyage they embarked on aboard Envoy, before there ever was a Kith.” Does that name mean anything to you?
And the profits shrink century by century, as demand shrinks; and so we do not replace our losses any longer, and our numbers grow less and less.
“Small profit or none? No, you gain your lives, the freedom to be what you are,” she said. “Except on Earth — You’re aliens there; because the profit is small, you have to set high prices; you obey our laws, but you don’t submit in your hearts; and so you come to be hated. I’ve wondered why you don’t abandon Earth altogether.”
The idea had passed through his mind occasionally. Veer off Don’t speak it. Dangerous, also to his soul. “Earth is our planet too, Freelady. We get by. Please don’t feel sorry for us.”
“A stiff-necked people,” she said. “You don’t even want pity.”
“Who does, Freelady?” He laid her meal on a plate and handed it to her.
Where the slum ended, Kenri found a monorail nexus and took an ascensor up to the line he wanted. Nobody else boarded the car that stopped for him and nobody else was on it. He sat down and looked out the canopy. The view speeding past was undeniably superb. Towers soared in columns and tiers and pinnacles; streets and skyways glowed, phosphorescent spiderwebs; lights blazed and flashed in strings, arcs, fountains, every color eyes could know; scraps of dark sky heightened the brilliance. Was any world anywhere more exotic? Surely he could spend a lifetime exploring this, with Nivala for guide.
As he neared city center, the car paused to admit four young persons. They were Frees, he saw, though styles of appearance and behavior had changed. Filmy cloaks streamed from luminous draperies or skintights; jewels glittered in headbands; men sported elaborately curled short beards, women wore twinkling lights in flowing hair. Kenri hunched in his seat, acutely aware of his drabness.
The couples came down the aisle toward him. “Oh, look, a tumy,” cried a girl.
“He’s got a nerve,” said a boy. “I’ll order him off.”
“No, Scanish.” The second female voice sounded gentler than the first. “He has the right.”
“He shouldn’t have. I know these tumies. Give ’em a finger and they’ll take your whole arm.” The four passed by and settled behind Kenri. They left three rows vacant between themselves and him. Their conversation still reached his ears.
“My father’s in Transsolar Trading. He’ll tell you.”
“Don’t, Scanish. He’s listening.”
“Well, I hope he gets a potful.”
“Never mind,” said the other boy. “What’ll we do tonight? Haven’t settled that yet, have we? Go to Halgor’s?”