The Colors of Space

Bart put the papers in his pants pocket and the torn-up scraps of his

old ones into the trashbin before he realized that they looked exactly

like what they were--torn-up legal identity papers and a broken plastic

card. Nobody destroyed identity papers for any good reason. What could

he do?

Then he remembered something from the Academy. Starships were

closed-system cycles, no waste was discarded, but everything was

collected in big chemical tanks, broken down to separate elements,

purified and built up again into new materials. He threw the paper into

the toilet, worked the plastic card back and forth, back and forth until

he had wrenched it into inch-wide bits, and threw it after them.

The cabin door opened and a Mentorian said irritably, "Please lie down

and fasten your straps. I haven't all day."

Hastily Bart flushed the toilet and went to the bunk. Now everything

that could identify him as Bart Steele was on its way to the breakdown

tanks. Before long, the complex hydrocarbons and cellulose would all be

innocent little molecules of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen; they might turn

up in new combinations as sugar on the table!

The Mentorian grumbled, "You young people think the rules mean everybody

but you," and strapped him far too tightly into the bunk. Bart felt

resentful; just because Mentorians could work on Lhari ships, did they

have to act as if they owned everybody?

When the man had gone, Bart drew a deep breath. Was he really doing the

right thing?

If he'd refused to get out of the robotcab-If he'd driven Briscoe straight to the police-Then maybe Briscoe would still be alive. And now it was too late.

A warning siren went off in the ship, rising to hysterical intensity.

Bart thought, incredulously, this is really happening. It felt like a

nightmare. His father a fugitive from the Lhari. Briscoe dead. He

himself traveling, with forged papers, to a star he'd never seen.

He braced himself, knowing the siren was the last warning before

takeoff. First there would be the hum of great turbines deep in the

ship, then the crushing surge of acceleration. He had made a dozen trips

inside the solar system, but no matter how often he did it, there was

the strange excitement, the little pinpoint of fear, like an exotic

taste, that was almost pleasant.

The door opened and Bart grabbed a fistful of bed-ticking as two Lhari

came into the room.

One of them said, in their strange shrill speech, "This boy is the right

age."

Bart froze.

"You're seeing spies in every corner, Ransell," said the other, then in

Universal, "Could we trrouble you for your paperesses, sirr?"