Screwtop

'You must have been in a terrible place.'

'It's hard to remember if it was really as bad as I think. I can remember my parents, but never smiling, only yelling at each other and hitting me.'

Miria shook her head. 'That's terrible, to be driven away by your own people-- to have nowhere to grow up... Did you ever go back?'

'I don't think so.'

'What?' 'I can't remember much about where I was born. I always thought I'd recognize the spaceport, but there might have been more than one, so maybe I have been back and maybe I haven't. The thing is, I can't remember what they called the planet. Maybe I never knew.'

'I cannot imagine it-- not to know who you are or where you come from or even who your parents were.'

'I know that,' Kylis said.

'You could find out about the world. Fingerprints or ship records or regression-- '

'I guess I could. If I ever wanted to. Sometime I might even do it, if I ever get out of here.'

'I'm sorry we stopped you. Really. It's just that we feel that everyone who can should contribute a fair share.'

Kylis still found it hard to believe that after being sent to Screwtop Miria would include herself in Redsun's collective conscience, but she had said 'we.' Kylis only thought of authorities as 'they.'

She shrugged. 'Spaceport rats know they can get caught. It doesn't happen too often and usually you hear that you should avoid the place.'

'I wish you had.'

'We take the chance.' She touched the silver tattoo again. 'You don't get one of these until you've proved you can be trusted. So when places use informers against us, we usually know who they are.'

'But on Redsun you were betrayed?'

'I never expected them to use a child,' Kylis said bitterly.

'A child!'

'This little kid sneaked on my ship. He did a decent job of it, and he reminded me of me. He was only ten or eleven, and he was all beat up. I guess we aren't so suspicious of kids because most of us started at the same age.' Kylis glanced at Miria and saw that she was staring at her, horrified.

'They used a child? And injured him, just to catch you?'

'Does that really surprise you?'

'Yes,' Miria said.

'Miria, half the people who were killed during the last set weren't more than five or six years older than the boy who turned me in. Most of the people being sent here now are that age. What could they possibly have done terrible enough to get them sent here?'

'I don't know,' Miria said softly without looking up. 'We need the power generators. Someone has to drill the steam wells. Some of us will die in the work. But you're right about the young people. I've been thinking about... other things. I had not noticed.' She said that as if she had committed a crime, or more

exactly a sin, by not noticing.

'And the child...' Her voice trailed off and she smiled sadly at Kylis. 'How old are you?'

'I don't know. Maybe twenty.'

Miria raised one eyebrow. 'Twenty? Older in experience, but not that old in time. You should not be here.'

'But I am. I'll survive it.'

'I think you will. And what then?'

'Gryf and Jason and I have plans.'

'On Redsun?'

'Gods, no.'

'Kylis,' Miria said carefully, 'you do not know much about tetraparentals, do you?'

'How much do I need to know?'

'I was born here. I used to... to work for them. Their whole purpose is their intelligence. Normal people like you and me bore them. They cannot tolerate us for long.'

'Miria, stop it!'

'Your friend will only cause you pain. Give him up. Put him away from you. Urge him to go home.'

'No! He knows I'm an ordinary person. We know what we're going to do.'

'It makes no difference,' Miria said with abrupt coldness. 'He will not be allowed to leave Redsun.'

Kylis felt the blood drain from her face. No one had ever said that so directly and brutally before. 'They can't keep him. How long will they make him stay here before they realize they can't break him?'

'He is important. He owes Redsun his existence.'

'But he's a person with his own dreams. They can't make him a slave!'

'His research team is worthless without him.'

'I don't care,' Kylis said.

'You-- ' Miria cut herself off. Her voice became much gentler. 'They will try to persuade him to follow their plans. He may decide to do as they ask.'

'I wouldn't feel any obligation to the people who run things on Redsun even if I lived here. Why should he be loyal to them? Why should you? What did they ever do but send you here? What will they let you do when you get out? Anything decent or just more dirty, murderous jobs like this one?' She realized she was shouting, and Miria looked stunned.

'I don't know,' Miria said. 'I don't know, Kylis. Please stop saying such dangerous things.' She was terrified and shaken, much more upset than when she had been crying.

Kylis moved nearer and took her hand. 'I'm sorry, Miria, I didn't mean to hurt you or say anything that could get you in trouble.' She paused, wondering how far Miria's fear of Redsun's government might take her from her loyalty.

'Miria, ' she said on impulse, 'have you ever thought of partnering with anybody?'

Miria hesitated so long that Kylis thought she would not answer. Kylis wondered if she had intruded on Miria's past again.

'No,' Miria finally said. 'Never.'

'Would you?'

'Think about it? Or do it?'

'Both. Partner with me and Gryf and Jason. Not just here, but when we get out.'

'No,' Miria said. 'No, I couldn't.' She sounded frightened again.

'Because we want to leave Redsun?'

'Other reasons.'

'Would you just think about it?'

Miria shook her head.

'I know you don't usually live in groups on Redsun,' Kylis said. 'But where I was born, a lot of people did, even though my parents were alone. I remember, before I ran away, my friends were never afraid to go home like I was. Jason spent all his life in a group family, and he says it's a lot easier to get along.' She was skipping over her own occasional doubts that any world could be as pleasant as the one Jason

described. Whatever it was like, it had to be better than her own former existence of constant hiding and constant uncertainty; it had to be better than what Gryf told her of Redsun, with its emphasis on loyalty to the government at the expense of any family structure too big to move instantly at the whim or order of the rulers.

Miria did not respond.

'Anyway, three people aren't enough-- we thought we'd find others after we got out. But I think-- '

'Gryf doesn't-- ' Miria interrupted Kylis, then stopped herself and started over. 'They don't know you were going to ask me?'

'Not exactly, but they both know you,' Kylis said defensively. She thought Miria might be afraid Kylis' partners would refuse her. Kylis knew they would not but could not put how she knew into proper words.

The rain had blurred away the marks of tears on Miria's cheeks, and now she smiled and squeezed Kylis'