“He won’t do it,” Janey said stubbornly. “Golden Boy won’t do it!”

Mayliss laughed. “You warm me, Starlady, you’re such a stupid. Listen good, cause I’m going to spin you right. Golden Boy will do zactly what Hal says. You think you learned a lot, but you don’t know nothing. Stead of a clear skull, you got a head full of hair and stars. I think you hum to Golden Boy, you know, and that’s so warm it’s boiling.”

“I love him,” Janey said, with storms flashing across her face. “He’s kind and gentle and he’s never done anyone any harm, and he’s a hell of a lot better than anyone else on Thisrock.”

But Mayliss only laughed again “You’ll learn, Starlady. Hal don’t click, but at least he clicks better’n Golden Boy. Listen, I used to hum to Hal once. I had to learn.”

“What? That he uses people? Well, I learned that fast enough,” Janey said. She turned and went to the couch and sat down.

Mayliss followed her. “No, Starlady, you got it spun up all wobbly and tangled. I thought Hairy Hal was a big hero. He was faster with his no-knife than anybody, and he looked good, and he spun big about how he was going to click. Yes, and little Mayliss believed it all. Cept one night, after Hal’d been doing too good, there was this knock on the door, right? Crawney. Back then, Hal had me and two other girls and a couple boys and some exotics plus he had some ’sticks working for him, and he was spinning about a slice of joy-smoke. Well, Crawney came to chill him down. The Marquis wanted joy-smoke, you see, and the Marquis didn’t like Hal having exotics.

“Well, Hairy Hal just laughed at Crawney, and I hummed to that. It was a long time ago, right, and the Marquis wasn’t so big and Hal wasn’t so small, and Lametta was even still round. Hal had plans.