So they made an Exception. An Exception is when the Rules don't apply. So when a girl had a Bad Baby, they would take it from her and put her on the Hydro–Farm. After she did her punishment time, they would send her back to her own spray.

That didn't solve the whole problem though. While a girl was pregnant, she wasn't much good to her owners. Pregnant girls eat more, and they work less. And nobody wanted them in the Sex Tunnels either. It wasn't fair to the owners: the girl broke the Rules, not them.

But the Rulers are very, very smart—they always figure out what to do. The Book Boys said they made another Rule, a Rule to stop all the Bad Babies. If you were an owner of a girl, when she reached Year 11, you had to bring her to one of the Medical Tunnels. They would give her an implant there, a little fan–shaped thing, five lines with a star at the base—it would always be on the outside of the right thigh, where anyone could see it.

The implants work for six years, so there would be no more Bad Babies.

If it wasn't for the Book Boys, no one would ever know that the Rules used to be different. If you ask a Bureaucrat about an old Rule, you would be in trouble. Everybody knows that asking about an old Rule is against the Rules.

No wonder so many of the Book Boys are Outside.

My name is Hexon. Even though a Warlock named me, I am a Merchant Boy. That's not because we buy and sell stuff. Lots of people buy and sell stuff, especially in the Open Tunnels. The Merchant Boys are different. We sell in the Black Market, outside the Charted Zone. We sell anything. And we share everything we get with each other.

I was the one who heard the whisper first—that someone wanted to buy the Bad Babies. It didn't make sense. With the implants, there couldn't be any more of the Bad Babies.

I went in the Open Tunnels to check it out. That's what Merchant Boys do—we scout for new opportunities. New frontiers, we call them.

You have to be careful in the Open Tunnels. There's a No–Name crew in some of them. They went in there to hide. The Book Boys wrote that it was the Game Boys who started it. Then the Dancing Girls too. Killing. But not for money, for marks. Marks on their crew–clothes. It was like a contest. They only killed No–Names—"burns" they called them. They don't play that game anymore, but you still have to be careful in the Open Tunnels—some of the No–Names never came out, even after the killing stopped. And if they think you're hunting them, you wouldn't come out either.

Everybody knows there's a market for baby parts—hearts and kidneys are worth a lot of credits. That's what the Rulers always used the Bad Babies for: parts for transplants. The Rulers stopped doing it because the parts were no good—every time they used a Bad Baby's organs for a transplant the good baby would die. The Book Boys wrote that on the walls. A big sign—in blue.

THERE ARE NO BAD BABIES!

It's against the Rules to sell a baby for parts, but some people do it because baby parts are worth so many credits. Some mothers and fathers, they will pay anything to keep their babies alive. Some mothers and fathers will kill their babies if you offer them enough credits. It doesn't make sense—I could never understand why.

I spent thirteen days in the Open Tunnels, but I couldn't pick up a clue. Some of the traders had heard the whisper too, but they thought it was crazy.

I don't know why, but I wanted to know. The longer I stayed out, the more I needed to And the answer. If the Book Boys said there are no Bad Babies, it must be true. So how could there be a price on theme

I went out past the Open Tunnels, past the Black Market. Deep into whatever was out there past the Charted Zone. Looking for the crew that wanted the Bad Babies.

I was out there for another three days. I didn't find anything except rats. I'd seen rats before, plenty of times. But these rats were different. The noise they made was different—I can't explain how it was different, but I knew it was, the first time I heard it.

It's really dark outside the Charted Zone except for the little pools of light where one of the traders had set up shop. That's why it's called the Black Market, I guess—it's mostly black, with just little spots of light. I kept moving, using my crystal–flash only once in a while, to preserve the charge. Once I thought I saw a dog…just a flash of fur, I guess, but too big to be a rat. Or maybe I just didn't want to think about how a rat could be that big.

I was on my way back when I stopped into a provisions stand near the Rim. A provisions stand only sells maintenance food, like water or freeze–dry. Some of them sell Zoners too—some of the prospectors won't go outside the Charted Zone without them. When I first saw her, I thought she was one of the girls from the Sex Tunnels—some of them work in other tunnels, but I never heard of one working out around the Rim. She was a short girl, only up to my chest. Kind of slim, but real muscular—you could see it in her arms. I couldn't tell her Year—it's harder to do that with girls—but I could see she was a skin/shade 39—lighter than me, but not real pale like some. You don't offer to buy a girl a drink in a provisions stand, so I asked her if she wanted a cigarette. She said No, but she smiled real sweet when she said it, so I started talking to her.

You can't hang around in a provisions stand—they're too small. You're supposed to buy what you need and move on. She went out ahead of me. I was admiring the way her hips moved when I realized what I was looking at. Black Dorban pants, skintight—she was a Dancing Girl.

We found a place to sit, just a little past the halo of light from the provisions stand. She said her name was Fyyah. She spelled it for me, because you say it different from how it's spelled.

Inside the Charted Zone, there are clocks everywhere. Digital clocks, all the same. They are all the same, right down to the exact second no matter where you are. In the Black Market, there are no clocks. But even so, I knew we had talked for a long time. Not because it felt like that—it only felt like maybe a half–hour or something—but because we both said so much. I didn't want to go, and I could see Fyyah didn't want to either, but she had to find a place to sleep.

I told her she could have the sleep–tube I carry in my pack. My sleep–tube is a 33–Z, the very best, one hundred percent Raytell, with a heat exchanger and bubble visor. It only weighs about 12 ounces, so I always carry it in my pack when I'm scouting.

"I couldn't do that," she said. "It wouldn't be fair."

"It's okay," I told her. "I want you to." And I wasn't lying.

We found a flat spot a little bit off the ground. I opened it up and she climbed in, I took off my jacket and laid it flat. Then I put her jacket on top of mine and sat down on them. It gets cold in the open tunnels past the Charted Zone, but if you can keep something between your body and the ground you'll be all right—I slept in the Open Tunnels plenty of times before I got enough credits to buy the sleep–tube.

"Are you sure?" she asked me.

"I'll be fine," I told her.

She shifted her hips inside the sleep–tube, moving right against me. It was nice like that. She didn't kick in the heat exchanger, so the outside of the sleep–tube was warm. She left the visor up too, so we could talk.

"Have you been out here long?" she asked.

I knew she wasn't asking me about being outside the Charted Zone—"out here" means away…away from your spray. "Eleven years," I told her.

"You don't look that old," she said,

"I have my Year 19 soon," I answered. "You've been out…?"

"Just about two years."