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officer who was with him, speaking to Morn. He took something from his pocket and handed it to North's young friend, then joined North and his party. When they arrived home, a messenger was waiting. An empty apartment had been located in North's uncle's building. It was only two floors below his relatives, and they wanted North to come and look at it.
"So soon?" asked his mother. "Will we have to leave so soon?"
"Apparently so," North told her. "You'd better start packing your things while I go take a look. All right, commander?" he asked the Guard officer.
"Yes," the man replied. "I'll leave a man here with the others, and we'll take the Guard flier.
In a few minutes they were air borne, and before long, landed at the apartment building. Finding the manager, they were given a key and went down to the apartment. When they reached it, the Guard officer opened the door and told his man to wait outside while he and North looked at the apartment.
It was an inside apartment and much smaller than their old one. The kitchen was not separate, but joined to the dining area, and the bedrooms were much smaller, but at least it had its own toilet and shower. They hadn't reduced him to one that had public facilities. It was small but looked comfortable.
"You'd better take it," said the Guard officer. "If you turn it down, the next one will probably be lower class."
"It's approved," said North, and the officer turned to leave. "One moment!" cried North. "Before we join your other man, can you tell me what it was you gave Morn on The Temple steps?"
The Guard officer looked startled for a moment and then relaxed.
"You're observant! I suppose you ought to know. It was a homer beacon. Apparently, someone wanted to keep track of your movements, but we disabled it. We found it in your family flier. It hadn't been there long."
"I see," North nodded grimly. "We'd better get going."
And so, in three days North and his mother were in their new apartment. In a month or so, his mother would smile once and a while and sometimes even laugh at something funny on the Viewer. But she was never again the joyous, happy woman that she had been.
For six months there was a guard outside their apartment door, and North had an escort everywhere he went. He knew it was the work of Morn, and often thanked him only to receive a polite smile and the words "wouldn't you have done the same for me?"
In the solititude North had finally gotten to read the message tape that his father's former officer had slipped him. It was a copy of his father's Declaration of Valor, and promotion from The Hashon War for the rescue of fourteen disabled ships, and the crew lists from those ships with some names crossed out. The final part of the message read