Chapter
Four
The next morning, Roger Bond told him all about the dance.
"It was the dullest thing you could imagine. Same old people, same dusty old dances. Couple of people asked me where you were, but I didn't tell them anything."
"Good."
They wandered on through the heap of old, ugly buildings that composed the Starmen's Enclave. "It's just as well they think I was sick," Alan said. "I was, anyway. Sick from boredom."
He and Roger sat down carefully on the edge of a crumbling stone bench. They said nothing, just looking around. After a long while Alan broke the uncomfortable silence.
"You know what this place is? It's a ghetto. A self-imposed ghetto. Starmen are scared silly of going out into the Earther cities, so they keep themselves penned up in this filthy place instead."
"This place is really old. I wonder how far back those run-down buildings date."
"Thousand years, maybe more. No one ever bothers to build new ones. What for? The starmen don't mind living in the old ones."