I kind of slunk along, sticking to the walls, hands in my pockets. I kept my eyes down, except when I was looking around for a public phone. After several blocks, I realised that no one was paying any attention to me, and I took my hands out of my pockets. The sun filtered down over me, warm through the big dome, and I realised that even though I'd gotten myself stuck in 75, been 'jacked, and left in the worst neighbourhood in the whole State, I'd landed on my feet. The thought made me smile. Another kid, say Oly, wouldn't have coped nearly as well.
I still hadn't spied a public phone. I figured that the taprooms would have a phone, otherwise, how could a drunk call his wife and tell her he was going to be late coming home? I picked a bar, whose airlock was painted to look like a brick tunnel, and walked in.
The airlock irised shut behind me and I blinked in the gloom. My nose was assaulted with sickly sweet incense, and stale liquor, and cigar smoke.
The place was tiny, and crowded with dented metal tables and chairs that were bolted to the floorplates. A woman stood behind the bar, looking hard and brassy and cheap, watching a soap opera on her vid. A spacer sat in one corner, staring at his bulb of beer.
The bartender looked up. "Get lost, kid," she said. "No minors allowed."
"Sorry, ma'am," I said. "I just wanted to use your telephone. I was packjacked, and I need to call the police."
The bartender turned back to her soap opera. "Go peddle it somewhere else, sonny. The phone's for customers only."
"Please," I said. "My father's an ambassador, from 1898? I don't have any money, and I'm stuck here. I won't be a minute."
The spacer looked up from his drink. "Get lost, the lady said," he slurred at me.
"I'll buy something," I said.