She remembered how her face got wet as she watched him go out to the ship. He looked very tall and broad and strong, a man. His jaw was firm and his features grim. He looked toward her but didn't wave, for, since she could first remember, there had been a stringent rule against making close ties with boys at the Centers.
Replacing the locket, she rose and walked casually to the exit. She glanced right and left, hurried to the entrance to the factory, reached down her time card and punched in. Then she hurried back across the space to the dining hall, around behind it and on out to the rows of cedar trees.
The penalty, she knew, might be endless restriction, even death, but she didn't hesitate. With trees concealing her movements, she hurried along to the dormitory groundcar ramps. She went more cautiously now.
A moment later she heard masculine voices and a shiver ran down her spine. It was not the voices themselves, but the words they used. Zeehites. She had heard the term many times, never without a shudder. Men could be put to death for discussing the Zeehites around women or children.
Moving quickly, she slipped between two cars, slid into the control seat of one. With infinite care she backed it out, rolled it as quietly as possible a hundred yards before setting in motion the vanes that would lift it. She brought it down again in a clearing in the wood at the edge of the heat-blackened plain.
For a time she remained undecided. A score of ships were out on the plain. She had seen from the air scores of others on other plains. Nowhere had she seen one bristling with full armament and scars of battle to indicate it to be the Ida Bella, Nucleus, Trilogy or Firelance.
She thought of binding her dark wavy hair tight against her head. The thought, she knew, was idle. Nowhere on the planet could she pass as a man, dressed as she was in denims and sweater. Young men wore purple uniforms; those in logistics wore brown.
Dismissing caution, she walked rapidly toward the buildings of the Center. And now she became very careful of her thoughts. She knew that youths developed remarkably at the Centers. They had to if they were to survive out among the stars in that long chain of ships stretched across the course of the Zeehites. The boys were said to be telepathic. She didn't know for sure. She knew only that girls had to be careful of their thoughts around boys.
Pausing between two buildings, she glanced apprehensively at the open compound. Nothing stirred there but she had the eerie feeling that eyes were on her. It was too late to turn back. She started across to the main building.