good a place to wait for her as any. After buying a bottle of native whiskey at the bar, Blake went out into the Dubhe 4 night and made his way through the labyrinthine alleys of the native sector. In common with all chocoletto huts, Eldoria's was uncared for on the outside, and gave a false impression of poverty. He expected to find the usual hanger-on waiting in the anteroom, and looked forward to booting him out into the alley. Instead he found a young girl—

A human girl.

He paused in the doorway. The girl was sitting cross-legged on a small mat, a book open on her lap. Xenophon's Anabasis. Her hair made him think of the copper-colored sunrises of Norma 9 and her eyes reminded him of the blue tarns of Fornax 6. "Come in," she said.

After closing the door, he sat down opposite her on the guest mat. Behind her, a gaudy arras hid the hut's other room. "You are here to wait for Eldoria?" she asked.

Blake nodded. "And you?"

She laughed. "I am here because I live here," she said.

He tried to assimilate the information, but could not. Perceiving his difficulty, the girl went on, "My parents indentured themselves to the Great Starway Cartel and were assigned to the rubber plantations of Dubhe 4. They died of yellow-water dysentery before their indenture ran out, and in accordance with Interstellar Law I was auctioned off along with the rest of their possessions. Eldoria bought me."

Five years as a roving psycheye had hardened Blake to commercial colonization practices; nevertheless, he found the present example of man's inhumanity to man sickening.

"How old are you?" Blake asked.

"Fourteen."

"And what are you going to be when you grow up?"

"Probably I shall be a psychiatrist. Eldoria is sending me to the mission school now, and afterward she is going to put me through an institute of higher learning. And when I come of age, she is going to give me my freedom."

"I see," Blake said. He indicated the book on her lap. "Homework?"

She shook her head. "In addition to my courses at the mission school, I am studying the humanities."

"Xenophon," Blake said. "And I suppose Plato too."

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