20
The next morning, back in the furnished room in Danktown, Dekker awoke to a hammering on the door. When he got his braces on and had limped over to open it Marcus Hagland was there, looking accusing. "What are you doing, sleeping late?" he demanded. "Where were you yesterday?" And when Dekker had explained, Hagland looked angrily amused. "Sure they locked him up," he said. "He's a Martian, isn't he? I bet the guy he was fighting was Jap or Yankee or some other kind of Earthie, and I bet they didn't arrest him. You really ought to open your eyes and see what's going on, DeWoe."
Dekker didn't answer that. He shuffled over to the hot plate and asked, "Do you want some coffee?"
"Why not?" But Hagland was watching him closely, and before Dekker had poured it he said, "We'd better talk money first. You owe me for yesterday even if you weren't here; I did my part, I showed up. So let's get this account up to date before we start today."
That took Dekker by surprise. "Oh," he said, "right. I see what you mean. But can't do anything about that. I don't have enough cues left on my amulet."
"You what?"
Dekker said, embarrassed, "Well, my father was the one who paid you, wasn't he? I just had enough for incidentals—and most of that went yesterday."
"Jesus!" Marcus snarled. "How dumb can you be? You saw him; didn't you think of getting him to transfer funds to your account?"
"I'll take care of it right away," Dekker promised.
"Damn right you will. Forget the coffee; you need it more than I do. And I'll be back tomorrow to collect."
It wasn't just a matter of paying Marcus Hagland for tutoring, Dekker realized; he was also going to need money for food. So as soon as he was dressed he .went in search of his father's bank.
When he finally found out where it was, the assistant manager was polite but unhelpful. "You see, our problem is that your father's not here to authorize transferring his credit balance," he explained. "From what you say, he's a rehabilitee."
"He is a rehabilitee. He's in Pueblo. That's the whole problem."
"Well, rehabilitees' rights are safeguarded by law," the man said primly. "Maybe you are this Boldon DeWoe's son, maybe you aren't, probably you are—no, Mr. DeWoe, don't bother trying to prove it. That's not the point. What difference does it make if you are? We have to keep in mind that your father may not want you to receive his credit balance."
"But I don't have any other money!"
The assistant manager shrugged in mild sympathy. "If there's nothing else—?" he suggested.
"I don't even have enough to eat on."
"If you could get a notarized statement from your father—"
"He's not allowed to do anything like that! I visited him, and he can't have any other outside contact for the rest of the month."
"A court order, then?"
"How do I get a court order?"
"You retain a lawyer, of course. It's quite simple," the assistant manager told him, looking surprised. But could not tell him how to "retain" a "lawyer" when he didn't have the money to "retain" him with.
Back in the empty-feeling room, Dekker was sure that there had to be a way, if he had the time, and the luck, to find out what it was—some sort of retrainees'-aid society, or free legal services for the indigent—something.
On the other hand, he didn't want to do any of that. That was tantamount to accepting Earthie charity, and he was a Martian. Martians took care of their own problems, and the very idea of begging for aid made him feel unclean.
In any case, he reminded himself, it was only a matter of four days until the entrance examination would come up.
Dekker took stock of his resources. The apartment rent was paid until the end of the month. There was some food in the little chiller—not enough for four days, but since there was only himself to eat it perhaps there was enough, maybe, for the first couple. And, although the trip to Pueblo had mortally wounded his credit balance, there were a few cues left on his amulet—if he ate lightly.
If he ate lightly, that was, and if he didn't spend anything at all on everything but food, and if he was careful to save out the fare to get up to the mountain for the entrance test, and especially if he gave up Marcus's services. That was a given, anyway. A single day's pay to Marcus would have bankrupted him; the one day of cramming he already owed remained as a considerable grievance in Marcus's eyes, and the tutor flatly refused to provide any more of his time for any mere promise of eventual repayment whenever Boldon DeWoe got out of the correctional facility.
So Dekker did the only thing possible. He closeted himself in the little room, and he studied. When he was hungry he tried to put the thought of food out of his mind. Sometimes he succeeded.
Unfortunately, he discovered that he had another growing appetite, as well. It had been a long time since the Masai village and Sheila.
The Peacekeeper secretary who had admitted him to the Pueblo center had not struck him as particularly attractive when he was there, but for some reason images of her crossed knees floated before his eyes when they should have been firmly focused on his screen—of her knees, and of Doris Ngemba's bare breasts and warm chocolate-colored rump. Even of some of Sheila's more useful parts, though his memories of Sheila were not visual, because it had been dark in the hut.
There were so many women in the world, he reflected. Even this harder, nastier world. Surely there was one woman somewhere—perhaps even one right here in Denver, if only he knew where to look for her—who would not object to a little bed time with a fairly healthy and passably good-looking young Martian?
But not for a Martian without any money at all. It was a long four days.
When the test was over and they informed him he had passed and would be able to enter the dormitories the next day, Dekker thanked the proctors and went away. Other candidates were there, rioting and jubilant or slinking away in depression. Dekker didn't talk to any of them.
He hadn't needed to be told that he had passed. He had known it as soon as he looked at the test questions, and confirmed his belief that they were identical to the ones his father had given him to study.