Free Mining the Oort by Frederik Pohl Page A

his father with his luggage cart to pull. They probably should have kissed, he thought, but he had been unwilling to make the first move.
    They descended a moving staircase to a platform where eighteen or twenty little cars, not joined together like a train, were waiting. Boldon DeWoe led the way to the first car in line. When he got in he punched out a code on the keypad and inserted a shiny, pencil-thick thing that he wore around his neck in a slot. He looked at his son.
    "That's how you pay for things, with your credit amulet. You have to pay for things here."
    "We pay for things on Mars, too," Dekker said. "Of course, you probably wouldn't remember."
    His father didn't comment on that. He lowered himself to a seat and, looking at Dekker, "Why is your face so red?"
    "They give you whole-blood transfusions before you land, to help build up the red cells. That's plus all the other shots and—" He held up one leg to show. "—the braces."
    "Hold on tight, then," his father said, just about in time. At that moment two or three other cars smacked into theirs, finally forming a train. When it moved off the acceleration was a good deal more violent than Dekker expected. He thought for one unhappy moment that he might get sick, but didn't. None of the other passengers seemed to be bothered. There were only four others in the little car, all apparently Earthies, and when the train stopped three of those got off.
    The other cars uncoupled themselves, too, and their car lurched away. In five minutes it stopped and Boldon DeWoe got out.
    "This is the neighborhood," he said over his shoulder.
    It wasn't much of a neighborhood: Little cars and bigger vans were whining along the streets, trailing clouds of steam from their exhausts; people, most of them black, were cluttering the sidewalks; the buildings were astonishingly tall, by Dekker's Martian standards—eight to ten stories, some of them—but they seemed old and not particularly well cared for. Even the air had a funny sort of smell—smoky, perhaps, or spoiled . Dekker sneezed as his father turned and painfully began to climb some brick steps.
    There were four or five tall black men lounging on the stoop, drinking beer. Most of them were wearing shorts and brightly—or formerly brightly—colored open-necked shirts. Some of the garments were faded, most were sweat-stained. The men themselves seemed friendly enough: they moved aside to make room, and all of them nodded amiably to Boldon as they approached.
    This was not what Dekker had expected, none of it, and the man who was his father was not what he remembered. What Dekker remembered of Boldon DeWoe was a string-bean thin, smiling man, tall and skinny even for a Martian. Not this twisted, scrawny old guy, so bent that he was no taller than the black Earthies on the stoop. But when Boldon DeWoe introduced Dekker around he said, "This is my son." Then things began to look up a little for Dekker, because his father sounded actually proud when he said it.
    Then they were in the lift, which took back some of that momentary optimism, because not only did it smell of stale sweat and worse but it jolted Dekker's troubled legs so that he staggered. But he was glad the elevator was there, because the alternative would have been worse; his father's apartment was on the top floor.
    Then he saw the place where his father lived, where he would live. It wasn't just that it was small—Dekker was used to small—this place was also dirty .
    "You get the couch," his father told him, limping over to a sink and beginning to rinse out a glass. "It's short, but you're young. I'm going to have a drink."
    "No, thanks," Dekker said, though he hadn't been offered one. He picked a half-empty case of bottles off the couch and brushed the cushions off before he put his duffel bag on it. Then he began picking up dirty dishes from around the room.
    "Leave that," his father ordered, sitting down heavily with the drink in his hand. "I want to find out what