wn business. Like that thing about the Nowhere
Journey, for instance. Maybe Alaric Sr. didn't realize it, but being
the spoiled son of a billionaire wasn't all fun. "I'm a dilettante,"
Alaric would tell himself often, gazing in the mirror, "a bored
dilettante at the age of twenty-one."

Which in itself, he had to admit, wasn't too bad. But having reneged
on the Nowhere Journey in favor of a stranger twice his age who now
carried his, Alaric's, face, had engendered some annoying
complications. "You'll either have to hide or change your own
appearance and identity, Alaric."

"Hide? For how long, father?"

"I can't be sure. Years, probably."

"That's crazy. I'm not going to hide for years."

"Then change your appearance. Your way of life. Your occupation."

"I have no occupation."

"Get one. Change your face, too. Your fingerprints. It can be done.
Become a new man, live a new life."

In hiding there was boredom, impossible boredom. In the other
alternative there was adventure, intrigue--but uncertainty. One part
of young Alaric craved that uncertainty, the rest of him shunned it.
In a way it was like the Nowhere Journey all over again.

"Maybe Nowhere wouldn't have been so bad," said Alaric to his father,
choosing as a temporary alternative and retreat what he knew couldn't
possibly happen.

Couldn't it?

"If I choose another identity, I'd be eligible again for the Nowhere
Journey."

"By George, I hadn't considered that. No, wait. You could be older
than twenty-six."

"I like it the way I am," Alaric said, pouting.

"Then you'll have to hide. I spent ten million dollars to secure your
future, Alaric. I don't want you to throw it away."

Alaric pouted some more. "Let me think about it."

"Fair enough, but I'll want your answer tomorrow. Meanwhile, you are
not to leave the house."

Alaric agreed verbally, but took the first opportunity which presented
itself--that very night--to sneak out the servants' door, go downtown,
and get stewed to the gills.

At two in the morning he was picked up by the police for disorderly
conduct (it had happened before) after losing a fistfight to a much
poorer, much meaner drunk in a downtown bar. They questioned Alaric at
the police station, examined his belongings, went through his wallet,
notified his home.

Fuming, Alaric Sr. rushed to the police station to get his son. He was
met by the desk sergeant, a fat, balding man who wore his uniform in a
slovenly fashion