"What's that?" Nik's fingers tightened on his arm.
The gesture annoyed Hendley. He didn't like to be grabbed. He shook his arm free.
"What did you say?" Nik demanded.
"That girl. Met her on the stairway. She stole my drink," Hendley said sadly.
For a brief instant the lean, indifferent posture on his friend's face tightened with emotion. The expression was gone almost at once, but not before Hendley had recorded it. He was puzzled. Why should a stolen drink make Nik angry? There was more where it came from. All you could drink.
"I'll get you another," Nik said with a light laugh. "Can't have girls getting drunk on your liquor. I guess your drink was one too many for her."
"Wasn't that," Hendley said with a certainty that surprised him. He stared in the direction of the girl who had fallen. Something in his mind struggled toward shape and meaning. The thought resisted form, remaining as incoherent as a Freeman painting. But Hendley knew that he had to leave. Whatever the amorphous conviction was, it had something to do with the stolen drink, and it conveyed fear. "I'm going," he blurted.
"But—your drink!" Nik protested.
"No more." Hendley started away. Nik grabbed his arm. Hendley whirled on him in sudden anger. "I'm leaving!" he cried. He took refuge in the young Freeman's earlier words, not wanting to voice a nameless fear. "You said there was a show I shouldn't miss. I'm going back to the main Rec Hall!"
He lurched free of his friend's grasp and plunged through the yielding crowd toward the escalator. The center well was like a tunnel burrowing up toward the open sky, the sweet night air, the heavy garden scent of freedom.