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right to go inside, to
sit down with them and eat what they ate, to pretend for an hour that I
actually belonged somewhere.
    I stepped inside, ducking my head because the ragged doorway
was low by human standards. I was only medium height, but not many of the
Hydrans I’d passed in the street were as tall as I was. I felt a breath of
forced air kiss my face as I moved through it, keeping the warmth and the
cooking smells inside, the cold evening out. I wondered whether it was human
tech from across the river or a telekinetic field generated by someone inside.
    I stopped just inside the doorway, glad to feel warm again as
I inhaled the smells. They were strange and strong, making me realize how
hungry I was. A dozen people were scattered around the room at low tables;
singly, in couples, even a family with a child. The parents and child looked up
together, suddenly wary. I stood there a little longer, my eyes moving from
face to face, not able to stop looking at the strange beauty of their features.
Finally I crossed the room and sat down at an empty table, as far from anyone
else as possible.
    I searched for a menu, suddenly wondering whether you couldn’t
even get something to eat here if you couldn’t read minds.
    “Can I help you?”
    I jumped. Someone was standing at my elbow, looking down at me.
I wasn’t sure whether he’d come up behind me without my knowing it or whether
he’d teleported here to my side. My Gift wouldn’t tell me, any more than it
would tell me who he was or what he wanted from me. I took a long look at him
and decided he must be the owner.
    “Can I help you?” he asked again, in Standard, and the soft,
lilting way he formed the words hardened just a little.
    I realized that everyone in the room was looking at mg now.
The looks weren’t friendly. “Some food—?” The words sounded flat and foreign as
they came out of my mouth.
    His face closed as if I’d insulted him, as if he was
controlling himself with an effort. “I don’t know who you are,” he said very
quietly. “I don’t care what you are. But I’m telling you now, either stop what
you’re doing or get out.”
    “I’m not doing anything—” I said.
    Something caught me by the back of my jacket and hauled me
up. “Get out,” he said, “you damned pervert.” Something shoved me from behind.
It didn’t feel like his hand.
    He didn’t have to use his psi on me again. My own panic
drove me out the door and into the darkness. God, they knew .... They knew
what I was.
    Out in the street someone caught my arm. I turned, my hand
fisting. My eyes registered the slack face, the vacant stare of a burnout. The
Hydran mouthed words so slurred I couldn’t tell whether they were even in a
language I knew.
    Swearing, I jerked free and moved or, not caring where I
went, as long as it was away from there.
    By the time my head had cleared enough so I realized what I’d
done, I was lost. There had been signs, some way of backtracking, when I’d left
the eatery. There were no signs of any kind that I recognized, now. There was
no street lighting either, and Refuge’s single moon hadn’t risen yet. If there
were any shops they were closed and unmarked. The only lights I could see were
high up, unreachable, probably the lights of private homes. The building here
were just tall enough to keep me from using the bridge to guide me back where I’d
come from.
    No one else seemed to be on the street now. I felt more
relief than frustration as I realized how alone I was, because I couldn’t have
asked for help now if I’d been bleeding to death.
    I swore under my breath. I’d lived most of my life in a
place where knowing the streets meant survival; and now I was lost. There weren’t
even any maps of Freaktown in Tau’s public access; even my databand couldn’t
tell me where I was, or how to get out of here. Why the hell had I even come to
this place, just to prove what I’d always known ... that no one had ever wanted
me, that