I spent a week in Chattas jail; fed, clothed, and entertained at the expense of the citizens of Turners Planet. I’ve always heard that if you get something for free, then you get what you pay for, but the food in that jail wasn’t too bad. Nothing else was that bad either, except that the building is old, having been built early in the colonial days, just after the Granger-Stranger Wars.
    The jail was shaped like a large cube, about ten stories high. It had been built out of solid Turners Planet stone. The lower two floors were filled with offices, supply rooms, a medical clinic, a break room for guards and police officers, and the booking rooms. The upper floors contained the cells, a mess room for the inmates, the exercise room, and a few more supply rooms. The laundry and power systems were in the basement.
    The heating and cooling systems had been in need of repair for a long time, and the water had a metallic taste to it. The water bothered me, but I didn’t mind the heating and cooling systems acting up, since the climate in Chatta is nice year round. I also didn’t mind chatting with the guards.
    The other prisoners pretty much stayed away from me, except those who thought they could bolster their own criminal careers by chumming with me. Most of them were locals though, and not really of my stature in the criminal world. You see, I’ve robbed over 800 banks, hi-jacked two or three dozen armed transport ships, not to mention other jobs. And I’ve never been caught. Well, except for this once.
    My reputation did bring a lot of VIPs my way. The Chief of Police had me in his office the day after my capture, asking me was the food okay, and was anyone bothering me unnecessarily. I guess he was trying to make doubly sure I wouldn’t get off on a technicality. Turners Planet has laws that have stood firm for three centuries, where a defendant can get out of a conviction if he can prove that he was abused, neglected, or mistreated in any way while in jail or prison. And I guess he figured that I had more than enough money to hire a good enough lawyer to get me off, if he gave me even the slightest chance.
    I told him, thanks, I was fine, and the food was great, but could I have some spicier sauce for my hamburgers. No problem, he says, just don’t tell the other inmates.
    I’m sure he was recording the whole thing; they probably even had cameras in my cell, making sure I couldn’t use the abuse angle in court. They wanted me bad. One hundred fifty planets had been looking for me, some of them for more than twenty years, and Turners Planet needed this boost in their publicity to pull out of their economic depression. At least that’s what I read in the papers. Of course, I’ve never read the papers to find facts; hard facts can rarely be found in newspapers. But, by reading a newspaper, you can get a general gist of what’s going on.
    I played cards with a few of the guards, and a few games of chess with the head jailer, while awaiting my arraignment. I’ve never been that good at chess — my wife is much better — but I was better than my opponent this time. Good enough to let him win, barely, every time. I didn’t want him to get even the smallest inkling of how smart I really was.
    After a week, I went before the city’s head judge, and pled guilty. To attempted robbery. I pleaded ignorance to the assault and battery charges on the security guards; I never touched either of them, and the cameras can prove that. They just fell over. The prosecutor for the government of the planet mentioned that other charges would be brought against me, from other robberies, but I’m not worried. I don’t think anyone can prove it was me that did all of those jobs. I’ve been careful throughout the years to cover my tracks. I’ve got more than three dozen valid IDs, all with different names, and it’s been thirty-two years since I did a job without wearing gloves.
    The sentence for bank robbery on Turners Planet varies from five years to twenty years, depending on how much money is stolen, whether or not the money is recovered, how many people were hurt, etc. But the sentence for attempted robbery is two to five. The prosecutor was too smart to try the first charge; I never made it out of the bank — I would’ve been a free man if he had tried that. And since nobody was hurt — the guards were fine after a few minutes — I only got two years in the Meela Penitentiary. And that without a lawyer! I just let the evidence speak for itself, and the law mandated my sentence. I know there are a lot of people mad about all that, but the next time they’re in court, they’ll demand their rights and a fair trial, just like I had. Most people think the court systems on the older planets are too slow and too lenient, but I know the courts are that way for a reason. It’s to keep the innocent from being punished. Reasonable Doubt is a powerful concept, when explained to a jury. And if it weren’t for this very lenience, the government could take whatever it wanted, and our democracy would be dead.
    Most of the planets in our comer of the Milky Way have some form of democratic government, with a bill of rights to protect the citizens. This Bill of Rights ensures that the members of the normal population have certain freedoms, and that they are protected in the event of a mistaken arrest. Not all governments are like that.
    Imagine a government where the only witnesses allowed in court are brought in by the prosecution, and there are no appeals, and the sentence is always exile to a salt mine, and citizens aren’t allowed to leave or enter a city without a passport. They say that there actually were governments like that, back on Old Home Terra. They also say that there are a few planets around today with similar laws. They start out by banning citizen-owned firearms, using the excuse that it will cut down on crime. Of course, it usually doesnt, but they always got the population to believe it. Then, with the best part of the population disarmed, some economic or natural disaster would conveniently come along, giving the government the excuse to exercise emergency powers and set up martial law. Many times, because of a charismatic leader and the fear of the current disaster, the populace goes along with the changes. After that, no one has a fighting chance. It hasn’t happened in a long time, since most people nowadays turn colonist whenever they see the initial signs. When privacy rights start being violated, when the police can search your home, vehicle, or luggage without a warrant, and so on, it’s time to sign up for a colony world. Keep your eyes peeled.
    Meela, where I was sent, is the ninth of 10 planets in the Tau Ceti System, almost 700 million miles from its mother star. The gravity is about three-quarters of Galactic Standard, and the warmest it gets (at noon, on the equator, in the summer) is just above the freezing point of water. It rotates every 21 days or so, meaning that at night it can get pretty cold. In the winter, even at the equator, it will get as low as 100 degrees below zero.
    I remember seeing on the news that someone didn’t think it was fair that prisoners should get to relax in lower gravity. What they don’t realize is that it just weakens the prisoner. After a man in his 40s (like me) spends two years at three-quarters gravity, getting used to weighing only 135 pounds, it’s very difficult to readjust to my standard weight of 180.
    A week after the sentencing, I was prodded onto a medium-sized transport ship along with 25 other convicts, and two days later we were landing in a blizzard on Meela. And there I stayed, until I forgot what the free life was like.
    The Meela Penitentiary is not the kind of place I wanted to be. It was nothing like the Chatta jail, where we got to sit around all day, watching satellite holovision. There were a lot of rough characters there, and I was around them all day. Each prisoner is assigned a job, and the bosses aren’t very nice. But I got along with them the best I could. And after a few initial skirmishes with the prison gangs, they left me alone.
    I didn’t stop planning new scores.

*

I had been at Meela for a month when a guard came to my cell and escorted me to the prison psychiatrist. He was a young man, of slight build, with a large mop of tousled brown hair.
    “So, Mr. Kaplan,” he said, after I had been seated, “we meet at last. My name’s Sanderson. John Sanderson.”
    “Nice to meet you”, I replied sincerely. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting? Or do all of the convicts get to see you?”
    “Oh, they all get to see me”, he said emphatically, then laughed just a little. “But that’s just a formality. You see, I have to have a file on all of you. All the files go to the parole board for consideration. But you — you, Philipp Kaplan, are a special one. You’re the best in your specialty. Every classification has its top few, but sometimes, one person stands out above the rest, and his name lasts through history. Like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, the Newton Boys, or Al Capone, from Old Home Terra, your name will probably live on long after you’re dead.”
    I smiled at that. “Sounds interesting, doc. Did you bring me in here to flatter me? Or do you want to talk about what makes me tick?”
    “More than that”, he said. “I want to know why you do what you do.”
    “It’s a little more complicated than that”, I replied. “There’s not a simple answer.”
    Sanderson sighed. “There is rarely a simple answer, Mr. Kaplan. If there were, society wouldn’t need people like me. So, tell me your story. When did it all start?”
    I started telling him. After about thirty minutes, he suggested politely that perhaps I should write it down, since he didn’t have all day, So, I requisitioned pen and paper from the supply room and started writing.

*

Where did it all start? I mean, psychiatrists for centuries have been wondering about that. What makes criminals do what they do? There is a school of thought that says ever since religion was taken off its pedestal, morality has gone down. I don’t know about that. Have you ever read the story of King David and Bathsheba? Or what about the man in the Book of Judges who sliced his concubine into twelve pieces and sent one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel? Don’t take my word for it, read the Bible.
    There is another, larger and more vocal group of people who say that it is the fault of our education system. They think that if we pump more cash into our school systems, kids will suddenly develop morals and consciences, and decide not to turn to crime as a way of life.
    Others say that too many parents are working, and the kids don’t spend enough time with the two people who should be instilling morals into them. The arguments go on and on, with no solutions. Crime has followed humanity since the murky beginnings of our race.
    Where did it start for me? Let’s see...

*

I think I was about four or five years old when my parents signed up to be colonists to Persiphone. We had been living on Tuf, one of the very oldest planets in human civilization. In fact, they say Tuf is the first planet that mankind landed on when they left Old Home Terra’s System. However, there are a growing number of people who say that Terra is just a myth, and that we never came from such a place. I can remember my dad pointing to the night sky above Tuf, and showing me which star was Sol, the original Sun of humanity.
    Anyway, one night after dinner, my dad explained to me that Tuf was getting too crowded for him, and there were plenty of new planets to choose from, but Persiphone seemed to be the best one. I just shrugged it off, and went back outside to play with the neighbor’s kid.
    Funny thing is, I can’t remember that kid’s name.
    In those days, the Great Separation was still going on, and cheap food was scarce. My dad was a hydroponics supervisor on Tuf, working for a firm that was inventing ways to make better synthetic food.
    Sometimes we didn’t have news from other planets for a year or two at a time, but every freighter that showed up was welcome. I think the current historical perspective about the Separation is wrong. Historians are saying that the older planets cast away the unruly colonies, and that started the whole thing. But I remember all of us on the established worlds waited anxiously for any contact with the other, newer planets. That leads me to believe that it may have been the outer colonies that initially broke the ties with Tuf, Paradise, Turners Planet, Willsworld, and the other older worlds.
    Either way, my dad heard from someone at work that the outer planets were still sending out scout ships to new suns, and they had found Persiphone, Golian, Wederr, Jalla, and other new worlds, all empty of intelligent life, and each ready for new colonists.
    Maybe it was this fresh wave of colonization — of which I was a part — that brought the human race back together in the form of the Second Galactic Rim Federation. I don’t know, but the new colonies needed some kind of trade and support, and either way, the established planets seemed to grow closer together shortly after the new colonies were born.
    I remember we got rid of a lot of things, keeping only our most rugged clothes and most precious heirlooms. Almost all of our furniture had to go, along with most of my toys, and a few of our luxury items. By the time we rode the shuttle up to Nubase, that giant city in the sky of my childhood, I think my entire family only had about 100 pounds of property.
    I think at that time, there were 4 or 5 million people living in Nubase, more than half of whom had never been on the ground. There, I had my medical exam and IQ tests and was let loose with the other children while my parents had about two weeks of colonial training. I’ve talked to a few people who don’t know much about the colonial process, and they’re usually surprised that two weeks of training is all you get — less, if you’re under eighteen, as I had been. The reason the Colonial Commission doesn’t spend more time on training is this: a colonist can only end up three ways. Either they become successful thriving colonists, die trying, or give up and go back home. More extensive training would run up the cost, but wouldn’t change the outcome — much. Some people just aren’t cut out for colonization.
    We rode in the old Jeffries, a freighter that also carried passengers, out to Blabrow, in the Jelpp System, where we disembarked in Astropolis IV, a century-old space city that was the main processing station for colonists. There, we had our immunization shots and received booklets describing Persiphone and detailing the homestead laws of the Colonial Commission.
    The factories on Blabrow and Mouwor were spitting out all kinds of machinery: mining equipment, farming tools, construction equipment, and shuttles were ferrying all of this up into the cargo holds of the colony ship Skelton. Last of all, we got on and rode out of the Jelpp System. That trip took just over one full day, until we were far enough out of the gravity well of the system, then we took the big Jump. It was only my second Jump ever, taking us to the Hollis System, where it took two more days to negotiate the gravity well there, down to Persiphone. It was a brilliant blue-green planet, just like Tuf, with blindingly white clouds and polar caps. Thinking back, I wonder now why no intelligent race had ever developed there; it was perfect.
    I don’t remember a whole lot about the colonial effort, except that I went to school a lot, and had trillions of chores when I got home every afternoon. My dad worked in town — Tarkin — for the first two years, earning enough money to make sure we got our land proved. Within five years, by the time I was ten years old, there were 200,000 people in Tarkin, but we were 20 miles out, on a five-acre homestead farm. I remember trying out for the basketball team at my school, and not making it, but that’s about all.
    We were a quiet, conservative family. All three of us worked the farm every day, dad helped with my homework, and so forth, and I was happy. I had a few good friends in school, and I loved our farm.
    I was a skinny kid, with scraggly brown hair, freckled skin, and flecked brown eyes. I got the hair and the brown eyes from my dad. The iris flecks and the fast metabolism came from my mom.
    I didn’t fully understand why we moved away from the more populated center of human space. It seemed like there were so many more things to do and see, back on Tuf, and nothing was lacking. Back home, my mom hadn’t needed to work — she just kept the house clean, and looked after me. My dad’s job had been a lot easier, physically, with much shorter hours, and a lot more money.
    On Persiphone, we all worked. There was no late night holovision show for the whole family — we were too tired for that, once the sun went down. Our nearest neighbor wasn’t in a house crammed up against ours, their front door only a few feet away. They were a few hundred yards’ walk down a dirt road. On Tuf, the most common way for me to get dirty was spilling food on myself. On Persiphone, I was dirty all day long from working outside.
    Yet, somehow, my parents, especially my father, were happier on our new planet home. My dad came home from work in town each day with a smile on his face, ready to work in the fields. When he went to bed at night, he slept soundly, instead of lying awake for hours, watching late night shows, trying to find sleep. There weren’t nearly as many fights between my parents. I wasn’t sure why they were so much happier, but I knew they were, and it translated over onto me, I guess.
    And soon, I forgot about Tuf, and Tabumb. I made new friends among the other colonists living around Tarkin, Persiphone. A mile or two down the road was another boy about my age, Norman Dester. We were in school together, and sometimes found time to play on the weekends. Norman had an older sister, and two older brothers, so he wasn’t expected to work quite as hard as I was. His parents let him help out at our place on weekends sometimes, and he and I became friends. We talked of someday owning our parents’ homesteads, and maybe going to new planets of our own.
    I don’t know if I was happy like my dad, but I wasn’t sad. I was satisfied, and there were no emotional roller coasters for me. My parents were stable people, with good ideas about life and child-rearing. My dad had once been a very religious man, and some of that stuck with him, and carried over to me — at least the morals part. We didn’t go to church as the Desters did, but my parents didn’t swear, drink or smoke. My dad, in his eccentric way, taught me not to steal, start fights, or treat other people wrong. He said there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with drinking, but that when people drank alcoholic beverages, their natural evil tendencies took over, and bad things seemed to happen. He said stealing was wrong, because it took the livelihood from other people.

*

Then my parents died. No, I’m not blaming my parents’ death for my criminal career; in fact, now I’m proud of my illegal success. But I can point to that time as the turning point. I was about thirteen, and just hitting puberty, when the autodriver on the city bus my parents were riding decided to quit, and the whole contraption buried itself into Mike’s Meat Market on Third Street. I was on my way home from school at the time, and so I didn’t know until the next day; I just figured they were spending the night somewhere else. Even when my principal told me, the next day, that my parents were dead, I didn’t really accept it.
    I was forced to accept it the day after that, when a representative from the Colonial Commission arrived at my house, I was out feeding the cows, the six-legged kind — imported from Willsworld — when I saw the shiny ground car float up to the door of my parents’ house.
    “Hey there! Philipp?” A portly looking man was stepping out of the ground car, wearing a suit that may have fit him when he attended his prom, but now was decidedly not his size.
    “Maybe, What do you want, mister?” I dumped my bucket of high-protein feed into the trough, and came sauntering toward him, running a hand through my sweaty hair.
    “Um, I need to talk to you, Philipp.” He seemed nervous, as if he didn’t talk to kids much. Now, thinking back, I realize that he probably didn’t have much chance to talk to kids. Most of his business was with adults. “Can we go inside?”
    “We can talk out here.” I stopped about twenty feet away, still holding the feed bucket. “What do you want to talk about? I haven’t broke no law, that I know of.”
    He grinned then, as if trying to give the impression that he was friendly. “Oh, no, I don’t know anything about any of that. You see, I’m from the Colonial Commission. I, uh, need to talk to you about your parents, and what happens to you.” He was holding a trim briefcase, and looked as if he needed a place to set it down. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just put it back in the car.
    “What happens to me? My principal says my parents died in a bus wreck the night before last. I’ll miss their help, but I can run the farm by myself; I’ve been working out here for maybe seven years.” I’m sure he had to try hard not to laugh. I probably weighed 80 pounds or less, and I was wearing nothing but my work shorts, my skinny ribs and arms just dangling around in odd directions.
    “Yes, Philipp, your parents were in that bus, and they are dead. But you can’t run this farm by yourself. It’s against the Commission’s rules to let a boy like you live out here without supervision. We need to find any of your relatives that may be living, or someone else that can take care of you, okay?”
    I hoped he really didn’t think it would be that easy. “Mister, you work for the Commission?”
    “Eh? Why, yes. Yes, I do, and—"
    “Is the Commission the same thing as the Government?” I knew it wasn’t, we had a pretty decent school system in Tarkin, even if it wasn’t quite what they have on Tuf. But I was trying in my adolescent way to make a point.
    “Well, for this planet, yes. The Colonial Commission is all you have for government, except for the provisional city government in Tarkin. That is, until the people of Persiphone set up their own government.” He shifted his briefcase to his other hand. “And the Commission has rules, you know. You have to be at least eighteen to be a colonist, unless you’re with your parents. And your parents aren’t with you anymore, so you can’t be a colonist. Do you understand that?” I could see that he was starting to sweat, and perhaps getting a little bit frustrated.
    “But I was with my parents when I came out here, and now I’m not a colonist anymore; I’m a resident. We proved our farm for five years, just like the rules say to. This land has been ours and just ours for more than two years. Now it’s my farm.”
    He didn’t quite roll his eyes then, but I bet he wanted to. “Look here, Philipp, I’m sorry about all that. But there is no such thing as a ‘resident’ here. Until Persiphone has her own government, you’re all colonists. And you’re not old enough to be here by yourself.”
    “I’m not by myself, mister. I’ve got all those people in Tarkin, just a few miles away, all the kids at school, my bus driver Mr. Jonessy, and my neighbors. I’ll get along just fine. Do you mind if I get along with my chores now?”
    He looked around, as if making sure no one could see his embarrassment. Like the time I stumbled off the edge of a sidewalk in the city; the first thing I did was to look up and see if anyone had seen me fall. “Now see here, young man. I’m trying to explain that you can’t stay here. I’m trying to be polite about this, man to man, you see. But I have a job to do, and that job includes finding you a new home. A home with someone who can look after you. You can’t .. stay here. Okay?”
    “I want to see your manager.” I had heard my mother say that once, when she was having a problem with a clerk in a store in Tarkin. After twenty minutes of turning red and threatening to take her business elsewhere, the manager had fixed her problem, whatever it was. I was hoping it would work here.
    “What! Now, look. I am the manager. I came out here myself, since—"
    “You mean you’re in charge of the whole Colonial Commission? Wow! I thought you’d have a nicer car.”
    He was really turning red. “No, Philipp, I’m not the President of the Company. But I am the representative in charge of this planet. Look, if you don’t want to leave this planet, maybe I can find someone around here that will adopt you or something. But I do have to do something about this.”
    “If you’re not in charge of the Commission, then I want to speak with your boss. I don’t know what you call him, but that’s who I want to speak to. Now I’m going back to work.” I turned around and headed for the barn, carrying the feed bucket with me. At the barn door, I turned around and saw his car speed away, heading back toward Tarkin.
    As soon as he was out of sight, I collapsed on the ground inside the barn, and began crying. I don’t know how I’d held out until then, with a straight face, but to this day, I’m proud of the ability to hold in my emotions when I needed to. I sobbed for at least thirty minutes, thinking about how I’d never see my dad and mom again, and how the Commission was going to take my farm away.
    Finally, I pulled myself together, and fed the other animals, then went into the house, and started cooking dinner. The night before had been the first full meal I’d ever cooked by myself, although I’d helped Mom plenty. This time, I just warmed up my leftovers from that first meal. I had some chicken and noodle casserole, with homemade rolls, green beans, and carrots. Then some homemade ice cream for dessert.
    As I was cleaning up the dishes, I began to cry again. I knew I had been bluffing to that man; there was no way I could run the farm by myself. Oh, I could keep the animals fed and watered, and I could cook and clean house, and even tend to the small vegetable garden next to the house, all while going to school. But there was no way I could tend to the tobacco plot, the corn plot, and the wheat plot, all by myself, not while doing the other things. I went to sleep curled up in Dad’s big chair, with the tear stains still on my face.
    The next morning at school, I was busy scrambling my way through a math test, when a student aide from the principal’s office showed up and handed my teacher a note. My teacher grunted, then told me that I should go with the aide, back to the principal’s office. I asked what about my test, and he said if I didn’t have time to finish it when I got back, I could finish it the next day.
    To my surprise, that Planetary Representative of the Colonial Commission was sitting in the principal’s office. My principal said, “Philipp, this is Harry Bates. He’s here to try to talk to you again. I hope you’re not still mad at him; it was my suggestion to send him to your house. I thought that would be better for you; But he does need to talk to you. Will you sit down?”
    I sat down, trying hard not to cry again. My dad used to say, “I don’t see nothing wrong with a man crying, but he shouldnt do it in front of other people, unless he’s at a funeral or a church, if you’re into that sort of nonsense.” I could hear him now, whispering in my ear, “Don’t cry, Philipp. Don’t let these men see that you’re weak.”
    Bates started out, speaking softly and slowly. “Philipp, I really am sorry about yesterday. I hope you will at least be patient with me this time, and listen to what I have to say. I know you don’t want to leave Persiphone, and maybe you won’t have to. But I do need you to listen. Okay?”
    “I’ll listen, Mister Bates, but can I say something first? It wont take long.”
    Maybe he could see by how wide my eyes were that I was trying not to cry. “All right, Philipp. It’s only fair for me to listen, since that’s what I’m asking you to do. Go ahead.”
    I sat up a little straighter, ran a shaky hand through my mop of hair, and cleared my throat. “I was wrong, Mr. Bates. I can’t run that farm by myself. I can feed the animals, and take care of the garden and the house, but not the three acres of crops by myself. It’s just that I don’t know what else to do. I can’t remember Tuf; I wasn’t even five when we left there, and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve been farming, cooking, and building ever since I can remember. If you have to appoint a guardian, could it be someone here on Persiphone, so I could do what I know how to do?”
    Mr. Bates looked up at my principal, then back at me. “Well, Philipp, that’s what I’m trying to work out. But I have to think about that, okay?” I nodded. ”And now, I have some things to run by you, all right?”
    I nodded again, and he went on, “I’m glad youve admitted you can’t run that farm. I mean, I’m sure you could if you weren’t in school, but you need to go to school. The rules are a little complicated here, but basically what we need to do is sell all of your parents’ property, and put the money in a trust fund that will be yours when you turn eighteen. And whoever becomes your guardian will be authorized to take money out of the fund if they need it to take care of you. Besides that, all colonists with children are required to take out an insurance policy, in case something like this happens. The policy your parents bought amounts to about 30,000 Colonial Credits, which converts to about 40,000 newdollars back home.
    “I know that seems like a lot of money to you, so in case you don’t know what it means, I’ll try to explain. It’s enough to buy a pretty decent house or three nice cars on a stuffy planet like Tuf. Out here, it would buy you a nice plot, and some nice equipment to work it with. Added to what you’ll have from selling your farm and animals, you’ll do okay when you turn 18.
    “But back to the matter of a guardian. The rules say I’m supposed to send you back to your nearest living relative. According to your parents’ applications, that means your grandparents, in Nubase, back at Tuf.” He held up his hands to ward off my interruption. “Now hang on a minute, Philipp, I’m not done yet. In order to get you a guardian out here, I’ll have to write to your grandparents for permission. And someone will have to find them, if they’ve moved. It would help your cause, I’m sure, if you’d write them a letter too. If by some chance your grandparents are no longer alive, or can’t be found, we’ll have to search for other relatives. This could take a long time, if your grandparents don’t reply immediately.
    “So here’s what I’m willing to do...”

*

As it worked out, I let Mr. Bates make himself my temporary guardian, and he let me keep my house. I sold the three worked acres to three different neighbors, with one of Bates’ assistants handling the sales paperwork. Since the land was already worked, and had crops growing on it, I sold it for five hundred colonial credits (cc500) per acre, except for the tobacco acre; it went for cc750, since the market for tobacco was going back up. The neighbors were going to make payments, with interest, but the initial sale amount came to cc1750. That’s over 2300 newdollars, enough for a beat-up, used ground car, most places. But out on the colony worlds, ground cars were very scarce, and even a used economy car would cost more than that, for a while. But with interest, after two years of payments, the total of the land sale came to around 4500 newdollars — or 3423 Colonial credits (since I financed it myself — or rather, Mr. Bates’ assistant did. After his fee, I would get about 3,000 newdollars for the sale.)
    Financial dealings were way too complicated for me back then, and still are. Maybe that’s when I decided, subconsciously, that the best way to live would be to have so much money that it didn’t matter how many fees and how much interest you had to pay.
    Anyway, the 3,000nd went in my trust fund with the 40,000nd from my parents’ insurance policy, where they would slowly accrue interest until my eighteenth birthday. I figured that even if I didn’t sell anything else, and with the interest accruing yearly, I would end up with about 52,500nd when I turned eighteen. But I had been figuring the interest at about 4%. Mr. Bates told me later that I would only get maybe 3%, but that it would accrue monthly. That made it more complicated, but he assured me that the end total would be higher that way.
    I kept the cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys for the time being, and the two acres they were on, with the house and the barn.
    I wrote a letter to my grandparents, telling them that I didn’t want to go back — no offense to them, please — but I liked Persiphone. I asked them to tell the Commission to let me stay, and to appoint a guardian for me.
    A month later, Mr. Bates showed me a letter from the Nubase Colonial Commission office, saying they had found a death certificate for my grandmother; she had died six months after we had shipped out, nearly seven years before. And my grandfather had moved, so they were trying to track him down.

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