"Don't you go getting into trouble, bringing those Blasts around bothering God-fearing folk who want to be left alone! It's you kids that make it tough for the rest of us. That rabble would let us be if you--" John rubbed his short-cropped blond hair in exasperation, and stalked to the corner. Pete followed, and they paused near the curb, ignoring the tirade which continued behind them. Finally, the woman stopped speaking and drew her head back inside the window. The street was old, cracked in many places. But it didn't matter. The only traffic was the ramshackle public snake which ran once every half-hour, and an occasional transport, and the Blast bubbles which were constantly on the prowl for profanity, theft, attacks on Outsiders, and juvenile delinquency. "For once in a foul-blood lifetime," John exploded, "let's cut a different caper! I'm sick of fighting the Sinais and Albines and Sons of Musso. I want Upper City, where we can pick up some high loot." Pete's thick jaw fell open and he stared at his blond, slender companion. "Upper City! But the Blasts--" "It's a free Galaxy, ain't it?" John snapped. "We're allowed anywhere our disks take us, ain't we? So I want to travel Upper City." "They'll watch us," Pete muttered. "Even if we could grab some loot, I don't like it there. My old man works as custodian in a food vendro. I went with him a few times and I didn't like it. The Outsiders look at us as if we smelled bad, and they don't sit near when we're on the snake. I tell you it's tough, John. Let's get a few of the boys and raid the Sons of Musso." John hesitated, and then decided that as leader of the Adolphs he had to follow through on what he'd said. He moved into the street and walked casually to the snake stop. "If you're jetting out, okay. But I don't operate that way." Pete didn't move. "You been there lately?" he jeered. "You know what it's like?" John acted as if he were too disgusted to answer. He'd been to Upper City several times, but that was years ago, when he was a baby and his mother had gone against the Divine-Angel-Church master's wishes and had him inoculated against cancer. Everyone was doing it on the sly anyway, so she took him for his three shots. Then she'd switched to the Race-Through-God sect, and it was like the other, only there the master let it be known he'd taken his anti-cancer shots like everyone else. But John didn't remember much of Upper City, except that the people had looked at them with amusement and some contempt. He'd wondered why they did, but when he asked his mother she'd said he'd find out for himself. He had. The foul-blood trash! They had no pride. And they were all alike! He searched for a disk as the snake appeared at the corner. The jointed series of cars moved slowly on its tractor-like treads, turbo exhaust filtering through the block-tube high on the engine. Each year it seemed to get slower, noisier, shabbier. * * * * *