The stew was good and his hunger made it superlative. The gravy was thick, there were vegetables and unidentified meat. Max didn't bother his head about the pedigrees of the materials; he simply enjoyed it. After a while his host said, "Seconds?"
"Huh? Sure. Thanks!"
The second can of stew filled him up and spread through his tissues a warm glow of well-being. He stretched lazily, enjoying his fatigue. "Feel better?" the man asked.
"Gee, yes. Thanks."
"By the way, you can call me Sam."
"Oh, my name is Max."
"Glad to know you, Max."
Max waited before raising a point that had been bothering him. "Uh, Sam? How did you know I was there? Did you hear me?"
Sam grinned. "No. But you were silhouetted against the sky. Don't ever do that, kid, or it may be the last thing you do."
Max twisted around and looked up at where he had lurked. Sure enough, Sam was right. He'd be dogged!
Sam added, "Traveled far?"
"Huh? Yeah, quite a piece."
"Going far?"
"Uh, pretty far, I guess."
Sam waited, then said, "Think your folks'll miss you?"
"Huh? How did you know?"
"That you had run away from home? Well, you have, haven't you?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have."
"You looked beat when you dragged in here. Maybe it's not too late to kill the goose before your bridges are burned. Think about it, kid. It's rough on the road. I know."
"Go back? I won't ever go back!"
"As bad as that?"
Max stared into the fire. He needed badly to get his thoughts straight, even if it meant telling a foreigner his private affairs--and this soft-spoken stranger was easy to talk to. "See here, Sam, did you ever have a stepmother?"
"Eh? Can't remember that I ever had any. The Central Jersey Development Center for State Children used to kiss me good night."
"Oh." Max blurted out his story with an occasional sympathetic question from Sam to straighten out its confusion. "So I lit out," he concluded. "There wasn't anything else to do. Was there?"
Sam pursed his lips. "I reckon not. This double stepfather of yours--he sounds like a mouse studying to be a rat. You're well shut of him."
"You don't think they'll try to find me and haul me back, do you?"
Sam stopped to put a piece of wood on the fire. "I am not sure about that."
"Huh? Why not? I'm no use to him. He doesn't like me. And Maw won't care, not really. She may whine a bit, but she won't turn her hand."
"Well, there's the farm."
"The farm? I don't care about that, not with Dad gone. Truthfully, it ain't much. You break your back trying to make a crop. If the Food Conservation Act hadn't forbidden owners to let farm land fall out of use, Dad would have quit farming long ago. It would take something like this government condemnation to make it possible to find anybody to take it off your hands."
"That's what I mean. This joker got your mother to sell it. Now my brand of law may not be much good, but it looks as if that money ought to come to you."
"What? Oh, I don't care about the money. I just want to get away from them."
"Don't talk that way about money; the powers-that-be will have you shut up for blasphemy. But it probably doesn't matter how you feel, as I think Citizen Montgomery is going to want to see you awful bad."
"Why?"
"Did your father leave a will?"
"No. Why? He didn't have anything to leave but the farm."
"I don't know the ins and outs of your state laws, but it's a sure thing that at least half of that farm belongs to you. Possibly your stepmother has only lifetime tenure in her half, with reversion to you when she dies. But it's a certainty that she can't grant a good deed without your signature. Along about time your county courthouse opens up tomorrow morning the buyers are going to find that out. Then they'll come high-tailing up, looking for her--and you. And ten minutes later this Montgomery hombre will start looking for you, if he hasn't already."
"Oh, me! If they find me, can they make me go back?"
"Don't let them find you. You've made a good start."
Max picked up his rucksack. "I guess I had better get moving. Thanks a lot, Sam. Maybe I can help you someday."
"Sit down."
"Look, I had better get as far away as I can."
"Kid, you're tired out and your judgment has slipped. How far can you walk tonight, the shape you're in? Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we'll go down to the highway, follow it about a mile to the freighters' restaurant south of here and catch the haulers as they come out from breakfast, feeling good. We'll promote a ride and you'll go farther in ten minutes than you could make all night."
Max had to admit that he was tired, exhausted really, and Sam certainly knew more about these wrinkles than he did. Sam added, "Got a blanket in your bindle?"
"No. Just a shirt ... and some books."
"Books, eh? Read quite a bit myself, when I get a chance. May I see them?"
Somewhat reluctantly Max got them out. Sam held them close to the fire and examined them. "Well, I'll be a three-eyed Martian! Kid, do you know what you've got here?"
"Sure."
"But you ought not to have these. You're not a member of the Astrogators' Guild."
"No, but my uncle was. He was on the first trip to Beta Hydrae," he added proudly.
"No foolin'!"
"Sure as taxes."
"But you've never been in space yourself? No, of course not."
"But I'm going to be!" Max admitted something that he had never told anyone, his ambition to emulate his uncle and go out to the stars. Sam listened thoughtfully. When Max stopped, he said slowly, "So you want to be an astrogator?"
"I certainly do."
Sam scratched his nose. "Look, kid, I don't want to throw cold water, but you know how the world wags. Getting to be an astrogator is almost as difficult as getting into the Plumbers' Guild. The soup is thin these days and there isn't enough to go around. The guild won't welcome you just because you are anxious to be apprenticed. Membership is hereditary, just like all the other high-pay guilds."
"But my uncle was a member."
"Your uncle isn't your father."
"No, but a member who hasn't any sons gets to nominate someone else. Uncle Chet explained it to me. He always told me he was going to register my nomination."
"And did he?"
Max was silent. At the time his uncle had died he had been too young to know how to go about finding out. When his father had followed his uncle events had closed in on him--he had never checked up, subconsciously preferring to nurse the dream rather than test it. "I don't know," he said at last. "I'm going to the Mother Chapter at Earthport and find out."
"Hmmm--I wish you luck, kid." He stared into the fire, sadly it seemed to Max. "Well, I'm going to grab some shut-eye, and you had better do the same. If you're chilly, you'll find some truck back under that rock shelf--burlap and packing materials and such. It'll keep you warm, if you don't mind risking a flea or two."
Max crawled into the dark hole indicated, found a half-way cave in the limestone. Groping, he located the primitive bedding. He had expected to be wakeful, but he was asleep before Sam finished covering the fire.
He was awakened by sunlight blazing outside. He crawled out, stood up and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs. By the sun he judged it to be about seven o'clock in the morning. Sam was not in sight. He looked around and shouted, not too loudly, and guessed that Sam had gone down to the creek for a drink and a cold wash. Max went back into the shelter and hauled out his rucksack, intending to change his socks.
His uncle's books were missing.
There was a note on top of his spare shirt: "Dear Max," it said, "There is more stew in the can. You can warm it up for breakfast. So long--Sam P.S. Sorry."
Further search disclosed that his identification card was missing, but Sam had not bothered with his other pitiful possessions. Max did not touch the stew but set out down the road, his mind filled with bitter thoughts.
3 EARTHPORT