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fill another cart with
produce the next day if I wanted them to. But I didn't. That would
be too soon.
    At the harvesting center, the wagon was
quickly unloaded and my paperwork processed. Nothing aroused the
suspicion of the clerk who didn't even look at me as he waved me
off, eager to get to the next person and be done for the day.
    Soon I settled into the same routine as the
legitimate colonists. I had a job and I made sure that I did it
openly and properly. I procured groceries at the store and washed
my clothes at the Laundromat, though I only did so when it was
empty so as not to call attention to the fact that I also showered
there instead of at home like everyone else.
    And I listened to the music of pan pipes
occasionally at night, though I never discovered the identity of
the piper beyond the fact that it was a man. A large man who moved
through the trees and bushes as stealthily as a cat when the music
was done and it was time to leave. He never took the same route out
of the orchard twice and that bothered me. He could stumble onto my
hideout.
    With that in mind, one day I dragged the
mattress and my few possessions deeper among the cherry bushes
before leaving with my harvest. When I returned the bushes had
grown tightly around my things, encircling them with a wall of
greenery so thick no one could find me unless they knew where to
look.
    The next time the piper came in the middle of
the night, I lay back without fear of discovery and let myself
enjoy the music as I regained the sanity I was in danger of losing
because I didn't truly know how to be a fugitive. The music was
enough like my aunt's songs that it reminded me that I was a
worthwhile human being after all and I was mentally transported
back to Earth and my home. I soon felt tears coursing down my
cheeks but the thick greenery muffled the sound of my sobbing. I
was grateful.
    During the daytime it was easy to forget that
I was a fugitive. I came to like the area and the people who lived
there. I was happy and it was only at night when the music of the
mysterious piper took me back home that I cried. During the day, I
could almost believe I was back on Earth just outside the small
town where I grew up. I'd always thought my family lived in the
most perfect place possible.
    Because of that upbringing I knew how small
towns worked and I also knew that the Destiny was organized around
a rural governmental system. I used that information and that
knowledge to blend in.
    I used my comunit freely now that I knew the
Destiny communications systems accepted it as valid. I talked with
people I met on the street though I never gave them a chance to ask
personal questions. I became a member of the community.
    That first week soon became another, and
another, until almost two months passed. I began to think that the
whole stowaway thing might work. I relaxed somewhat and only then
did I realize how tense I'd been. When the mysterious piper came in
the middle of the night, the music was so relaxing that one night I
fell asleep in the middle of a song and had no idea when he
left.
    I grew so bold that I didn't panic when
Cullen Vail, the man who could throw me out of an airlock,
appeared, though I would have avoided him if possible. I ran into
him at the New Rochelle café, a place I'd carefully avoided
whenever anyone wearing a Security uniform was around, but twice
Cullen Vail came in when I was already there and filling my plate.
I couldn't very well drop it and run because I saw him.
    When I turned around to look for an empty
table, there he was, less than three feet away, filling his own
plate. Lasagna and an apple, probably one from my trees. His
uniform stood out in that place of casual dress.
    We stared at each other too long to pretend
we didn't recognize each other. His scowl, followed by a fake
smile, told me he didn't want to talk to me any more than I wanted
a conversation with him. But his job required that he be friendly,
I'd read that in the Destiny