He stiffened. “Yes, Freelady.” What business was it of hers?
“I like your Town,” she said. “I used to go there. It’s — quaint? Like a bit of the past, not virtual but real.”
Sure. Your sort come to stare. You walk around drunk, and peek into our homes, and when an old man goes by you remark what a funny little geezer he is, without bothering to lower your voices, and when you haggle with a shopkeeper and he tries to get a fair price you tell each other how this proves we think of nothing but money. Sure, we’re happy to have you visit us. “Yes, Freelady.”
She looked hurt. A while after breakfast she withdrew behind her screen. He heard her playing a portable polymusicon. He didn’t recognize the melody. It must be very old, and yet it was young and tender and trustful, everything that was dear in humankind, When she stopped he felt an irrational desire to impress her. The Kith had their own tunes, and many were also ancient. Equally archaic was the instrument he took forth, a guitar. He tuned it, strummed a few chords, and left his mind drift. Presently he began to sing.
“When Jerry Clawson was a baby
On his mother’s knee in old Kentuck,
He said, ‘I’m gonna ride those deep-space rockets
Till the bones in my body turn to dust.’ —”
He sensed her come out and stand behind him, but pretended not to. Instead he regarded the stars.
” — Jerry’s voice came o’er the speaker:
Cut your cable and go free.
On full thrust, she’s blown more shielding.
Radiation’s got to me .
” ‘Take the boats in safety Earthward.
Tell the Blue Star Line for me
I was born with deep space catting.
Now in space forevermore I’ll be.’ ”
He ended with a crash of strings, turned his head, and rose.
“No, sit down,” she said before he could bow. “We’re not on Earth. What was that song?”
” ‘Jerry Clawson,’ Freelady,” he replied. “A translation from the original English. It goes back to the days of purely interplanetary flight.”
Star-Frees were supposed to be intellectuals as well as aesthetes. He waited for her to say that somebody ought to collect Kith folk ballads in a database.
“I like it,” she said. “Very much.”
He glanced away. “Thank you, Freelady. May I make bold to ask what you were playing?”
“Oh, . . . that’s even older. ‘Sheep May Safely Graze.’ By a man named Bach.” A slow smile crossed her lips. “I would have liked to know him.”
He raised his eyes to hers. They did not speak for what seemed a long while.
Kith Town lay in a bad district. It didn’t always. Kenri remembered a peaceful lower-class neighborhood; his parents had told him of bourgeoisie; his grandparents — whom he had never met, because they retired from starfaring before he was born and were therefore centuries dead — had spoken of bustling commerce; before the city was, Kith Town stood alone. Forever it remained Kith Town, well-nigh changeless.
No, probably not forever, the way the traffic was dwindling. Nor really changeless. Sometimes war had swept through, pockmarking walls and strewing streets with corpses; sometimes a mob had come looting and beating; often in the last several Earthside lifetimes, officers had swaggered in to enforce some new proclamation. Kenri shivered in the autumn wind and walked fast. He’d learned that nowadays, except for where the monorail from the spaceport stopped, there was no public transport within three kilometers.
Light became harsh as he entered the Earthling neighborhood, glare from side panels and overhead fixtures. He had heard this was decreed less to discourage crime than to keep it in its place, under surveillance. Vehicles were few. Inhabitants slouched, shambled, shuffled along littered walkways between grimy facades. Their garments were sleazy and they stank. Most of them were loose-genes, but he saw the dull, heavy faces of Normal-Ds among them, or the more alert countenance of a Normal-C or B. Twice a Standard thrust them aside as he hastened on his errand, ashine in the livery of the state or a private master. Then Kenri imagined he saw an electric flickering in the eyes around. Though still ignorant of current politics, he had caught mention of ambitious Dominants who were courting the poor and disinherited. Yes, and the Martians were restless, and the Radiant of Jupiter openly insolent. . . .