The Duke of Uranium

The all-powerful Maintefice was flooded with complaints within a second or two; by the time, ten minutes later, when the pokheets caught the two boys, they had probably become the least popular adolescents since people had begun moving into the Hive a thousand years ago.

Jak and Dujuv sat quietly, enjoying each other's company, as light and dark flashed by the Pertrans car windows. Some unknown architectural genius in the Hive's construction agency, many centuries before, had thought to require viewports in the sides of the Pertrans tunnels, so that in nearly every classroom, shop, corridor, park, gym, or office-any space but a private home-you were forever seeing the flash of passing Pertrans cars. But since the cars moved at bullet speeds, the passengers only rarely saw anything other than a flash of light, and people in the spaces tuned out the brief flicker of a passing Pertrans.

Entrepot was about two hundred kilometers northeast of their gen school, and more than three hundred kilometers deeper within the Hive, so the Pertrans would have to take most of its permitted five minutes. After ninety seconds of near weightlessness, weight increased briefly to almost a full g. As the car slowed to make its turn, for an instant Jak and Dujuv looked through a viewport into a big public gymnasium, then into the amusement park under it, and finally into a warehouse below that. Then the g of weight became diagonal, feeling as if the car were climbing a slope, and then each viewport glimpse came faster and briefer, till it was all flashing lights again.

Just after it felt like they were on a steep downslope, the lights flashed more slowly and became glances through windows again, and the Pertrans glided to a halt at Entrepot. Jak opened the door and stepped into the annoying heavy; Entrepot was at .76 grav.

Dujuv planted his feet on the walkway beside Jak. As the canopy folded back he had grabbed its upper lip, swung out and up, done a handstand grasping the top edge of the door, switched hands, and dismounted in a somersault.

"Do you have to do that?" "No, but I can. Decision time. Where are we going?

Where's a good place to find out if we got into the PSA?"

Jak shrugged. "We need a place where we can both celebrate, or where we can both commiserate, or where one of us can pretend to be happy for the other one."

"Well, when I celebrate, I like to do it at a place with lots of food. When I'm depressed, I just want to eat. And anytime I have to conceal my feelings, I get nervous, which always makes me really hungry." Dujuv raised his left hand to his face, palm inward. His purse—the fingerless glove into which his computer was built—activated, casting a faint glow on Dujuv's face. "Where would we go for a lot of food cheap?"

"The same place you go four times a week, the Old China Cafe," the purse said. "Jak will have sweet and sour beefrat, and you'll have a triple portion of oyster fried rice and an order of fishloaf with Chinese vegetables. Authorize to pre-order? Or are you going to pretend you're having something else until you get there?"

"Pre-order," Dujuv said, laughing. "Done." The glow vanished from Dujuv's face and he dropped his hand to his side. "Toktru, you ought to do something about your purse's attitude, Duj," Jak said. Dujuv shrugged. "I like some spirit in my purse, even if it's a little snotty. It's a good way to check and see if I'm an idiot."

"You could just ask your friends." "They're all idiots." Dujuv grinned.