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And Mouse was a classic of
that genre, at least with the opposite sex.
    Masato Igarashi Storm did nothing by half measures.
    The doctor coughed softly.
    “Will he be all right?” Amy demanded.
“He’ll come out okay? I know what you told me,
but . . . ”
    Mouse’s facial muscles moved slightly. His wan expression
spoke volumes about his disgust at her display.
    The doctor was more patient. “Just an enforced rest, Miss.
That’s all it is. There’s nothing wrong that rest
can’t cure. I hear he did a hell of a job feeding realtime to
Weapons Control. He just pushed himself too far.”
    A look flickered across Mouse’s stony face.
    “What’re
you
thinking?” Amy
demanded.
    “Just that he’s not usually a pusher.”
    Amy was ready for a fight.
    The doctor aborted it by giving benRabi an injection. He began
to come around.
    Mouse seemed indifferent to Amy’s response. But not
oblivious. He was an astute observer. He just did not care what she
thought.
    “Doc,” he said, “is there any special reason
for sticking with this kind of medical setup?”
    The woman held benRabi’s wrist, taking his pulse.
“What do you mean?”
    “It’s primitive. Almost Archaicist obsolete. They
had sonic sedation systems before I was born. Easier on the patient
and staff both.”
    The doctor reddened. Mouse had been out of the hospital only a
few weeks himself. He had spent a month recuperating from a severe
wound received from a Sangaree agent who had tried to seize
control of
Danion.
He was not pleased with the quality of
medical care, and made no secret of it. But Mouse hated all doctors
and hospitals. He could find fault with the finest.
    BenRabi had tracked the Sangaree woman down, and had shot
her . . . 
    Mouse had the nerve to stand toe-to-toe with the Devil and tell
him to put it where the sun doesn’t shine.
    “We have to make do with what we can afford, Mr.
Storm.”
    “So I’ve been told.” Mouse did not pursue it,
though he thought Seiners pleading poverty was on a par with Midas
begging alms on a street corner.
    BenRabi opened his eyes.
    “How you doing, Moyshe?” Storm asked, trampling
Amy’s more dramatic opener. His presence there, betraying his
concern, embarrassed him.
    The fabric of centuries takes the stamp; they mark the children
indelibly. Their legacy remains as invisible and irresistible as
the secret coded in DNA. The young Mouse had learned that Old
Earthers were pariahs.
    Mouse’s family had been in Service for three generations.
They were part of Confederation’s military aristocracy.
BenRabi’s forebears had been unemployed Social Insurees for
centuries.
    Neither man considered himself prejudiced. But false truths sown
in the fallows of childhood, planted deep, continued to sprout
unrealistic real-world responses.
    BenRabi had begun bridling his prejudice early. He had to
survive. There had been only two Old Earthers in his Academy
battalion.
    He needed a minute to get his bearings. “What am I doing
here?” he demanded.
    “You needed rest,” Amy told him. “Lots of it.
You overdid it this time.”
    “Come on. I can take care of myself. I know
when . . . ”
    “Crap!” the doctor snapped. “Every mindtech
thinks that. And then they turn up here, burned out. I change their
diapers and spoon feed them. What is it with you people, benRabi?
You all got egos two sizes too big for a small god.”
    Moyshe was fuzzy. He tried to say something flip. His tongue
felt like it was wrapped in an old sock.
    He saw tears in the doctor’s eyes. “Did you lose
someone at Stars’ End?”
    “My sister. She came out of creche just before you
landsmen came aboard. She was only seventeen, benRabi.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “No, you’re not. You’re a mindtech. Anyway,
sorry doesn’t help. Not when I have to take care of her every
day. She was just like you, benRabi. She knew she could handle it.
She wouldn’t listen either. None of them would. Not even the
controllers, who