And then he had a fear-inspiring thought. He couldn't tell an interplanetary ship from an interstellar. What if he did manage, somehow, to get in and stow away—and then found himself on a ship bound for no more distant port than Earth, from which he could easily be sent home in disgrace?
It sent a shiver through him. Fortunately, it also stimulated his mind. After all, there were such things as newspapers, and the school, nuisance in many ways though it was, had taught him to read.
He bought a paper and turned at once to the shipping news section. As he had hoped, every ship was listed. He checked off some of the names he had glimpsed on the field, and found happily that their destinations were printed in the most routine manner.
There still remained the question of how to get past the guards. This, he suddenly realized, was a question impossible to solve on an empty stomach. It had been many hours since he had eaten lunch.
There were a dozen restaurants in the spaceport, and he selected one carefully, studying the illuminated menus and the prices before daring to enter. If that motherly old woman had been as kind-hearted as she pretended to be, he wouldn't have had to worry so much about prices. As it was, he knew that he had money enough for only two days, and after that—his stomach could complain all it wanted to, it would have to go unfed.
He chose from the menu only items that he never tasted at school—dishes made from real plant and animal life, with just enough synthetics to give them flavor. He couldn't say that he liked what he ate, but at least it gave him the feeling of being on his own, of having made the break with his tame past as complete as possible. Earth-beef tasted too strong; Venus seaweed stew had a pungency that he didn't like.
He finished his plate only because he had been taught that to leave food over was wasteful. And for the first time he began to wonder what they would feed him on the spaceship. Suppose he got on one that wasn't scheduled to make port for five years—and all he received to eat was stuff like this? The thought made him shudder. Here was a hardship of space travel that the books he read had never mentioned.
After eating, he slumped back in his chair. He hadn't realized he was so completely exhausted until a hand shook his shoulder. Then he awoke with a start.
A waiter said, "This is no place to sleep, youngster."