Esquire. It's one of the few compensations I have
for the otherwise lousy deal life handed me. So if I choose to waste an
hour or two helping you find your brother, don't worry yourself about
it."

A bell rang, once, and a gentle red light glowed over the slot. Hawkes
reached in and scooped out the container that sat there.

Inside he found a rolled-up slip of paper. He pulled it out and read the
message typed on it several times, pursing his lips.

"Well? Did they find him?"

"Read it for yourself," Hawkes said. He pushed the sheet over to Alan.

It said, in crisp capital letters, A SEARCH OF THE FILES REVEALS THAT
NO WORK CARD HAS BEEN ISSUED ON EARTH IN THE PAST TEN YEARS TO STEVE
DONNELL, MALE, WITH THE REQUIRED PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Alan's face fell. He tossed the slip to the table and said, "Well? What
do we do now?"

"Now," Hawkes said, "we go upstairs to the cubbyhole where they keep the
Free Status people registered. We go through the same business there. I
didn't really expect to find your brother here, but it was worth a look.
It's next to impossible for a ship-jumping starman to buy his way into a
guild and get a work card."

"Suppose he's not registered with the Free Status people?"

Hawkes smiled patiently. "Then, my dear friend, you go back to your ship
with your mission incomplete. If he's not listed upstairs, there's no
way on Earth you could possibly find him."

_Chapter Seven_

The sign over the office door said REGISTRY OF FREE-STATUS LABOR FORCE,
and under that ROOM 1104. Hawkes nudged the door open and they went in.

It was not an imposing room. A fat pasty-faced man sat behind a scarred
neoplast desk, scribbling his signature on forms that he was taking from
an immense stack. The room was lined with records of one sort or
another, untidy, poorly assembled. There was dust everywhere.

The man at the desk looked up as they entered and nodded to Hawkes.
"Hello, Max. Making an honest man of yourself at last?"

"Not on your life," Hawkes said. "I came up here to do some checking.
Alan, this is Hines MacIntosh, Keeper of the Records. Hines, want you to
meet a starman friend of mine. Alan Donnell."

"Starman, eh?" MacIntosh's pudgy face went suddenly grave. "Well, boy, I
hope you know how to get along on an empty stomach. Free Status life
isn't easy."

"No," Alan said. "You don't under----"

Hawkes cut him off. "He's just in the city on leave, Hines. His ship
blasts off