He was sitting at his table eating as he spoke, his cape thrown back, his claw-like right hand clutching the plate as his left cut and speared with a kitchen knife. Janey sat across from him. In the corner of the room, regarding them both with immense blue eyes, Golden Boy sat on the couch.

Golden Boy had an easier time of it than Janey. Hairy Hal had run boys before, he said, but he wasn’t running Golden Boy, not yet. He just kept saying that he had plans. The youth sat around the compartment all day, eating and staring at people, never saying a word. Somehow he seemed to know what was required of him, whenever something was. Mayliss, after mothering him for a week, had finally gotten tired of the way he shrank away in fear whenever she came near him. She clawed him badly with sharpened nails, then ignored him after Hairy Hal promised her a taste of no-knife if she did it again. “Golden Boy’s got to stay pretty,” he told her, with his ghost-blade in his good hand. She’d been backed up against her bedroom door, looking terrified but oddly ecstatic. That night she and Hal had slept together, the only time since Janey Small and Golden Boy had arrived.

Most times Hal slept alone. That first night, he’d tried to sleep with Janey, but she’d pulled away and glared at him. “I did it for you all day, and you’ve got the money,” she said. “I’m not going to do it with you too.”

And he’d let her go and shrugged. “Starlady, you’re a strange one,” he said. Then he went to his room by himself. Janey sat by Golden Boy on the couch, looking at his eyes and brushing back his silver hair. Finally they’d gone to sleep together in the free-fall chamber, arms wrapped around each other as they nestled in the sleep-web. Golden Boy simply held her and slept. He knew what was required of him.