"You really don't have any money!" the voice said.
"I said so, didn't I?"
The voice said a dirty word that would've gotten it beaten black-and-blue back home, and then the hands were gone. I looked up just in time to see two small figures jetting away upwards.
I was naked, sitting on a catwalk above a freight corridor, three-quarters of a century and God-knew-how-many miles from home. I didn't cry. I was too worried to cry. I kicked my ruined clothes down into the freight corridor and pulled on the jumpsuit.
Some hero I was!
#
It was hard work, climbing staircase after staircase, up to the shopping levels. By the time I reached a level where I could see the sky, I was dripping with sweat and my headache had returned.
Foot traffic was light, but what there was pretty frightening. I'd gone walking in 75 before of course, but Greater Salt Lake was a big place, and there were parts of it that an Ambassador's son would never get to see.
This was one of them. The shopfronts were all iris-open airlocks, and had been painted around to look like surprised mouths, or eyes, or, in one fascinating case, a woman's private parts. Mostly, they were betting shops, or bars, or low-rent bounceaterias. Even in 1975, the Saints had some influence in Salt Lake, and the bars and brothels were pretty shameful places, where no respectable person would be caught.
The other pedestrians on the street were mostly off-worlders, either spacers in uniform or extees. In some cases, it was hard to tell which was which.