"Lev Fisher's coming back in an hour," Roj was saying with a frown. "The whole school knows what happened — you won't be safe now, even if you can keep out of his way till daylight. You can't stay here at ZL6-202, Paldit. We're going to have to get you out. Have you got anywhere in the city you can stay? There's my parents' apartment, down on Level 183 —"
"You'd let him anywhere near your people? After what his lot did to Mikey's brother, and Felson?" Whatever influence Roj had used to get the other juniors down here, it was clear enough some of them were less than happy. "He got nothing from Fisher but what they gave out to the rest of us, with him the worst of the lot — and now you're trusting Bran Paldit?"
Letting him off scot-free into the bargain. The words weren't spoken, but they were there.
"I trust a man by the company he keeps." It was said very simply. Roj looked up, glancing round the little circle, and caught Brannam's gaze in his own steady eyes. "Paldit's one of us."
A gift, and a promise exacted, in the same moment. When Roj Blake was grown, Brannam understood in that instant, men would follow him to the ends of the earth — and beyond.
He nodded in return. I'll protect them, Roj. These children, and others like them. I'll protect them from those of my own kind... as best I can.
One of the boys had brought down Brannam's kit from his room — what was left of it. He'd found a wearable change of clothing from among the stuff that had been slashed, plus another set that would do at a pinch, and sorted out a small case of personal belongings without the betraying Pharos crest. The data tapes had all been scrawled over and discarded, half of them with casings cracked; nothing there he cared enough to salvage — except —
In sudden panic, he scrabbled through the remnants. He'd left the enrolment tape in amongst the rest. If they'd found that... or, worse, smashed it without even a thought... Roj caught the movement and looked across with a frown; but in that same moment the older boy's fingers closed around the small grey datatape, unmarked and anonymous, and Brannam felt his own face go slack with relief.
"Here." He held it out. "Thanks for the offer, Roj, but that's all I'll need. Enrolment into AgTech; it's big enough to disappear in, and Fisher won't know or care. He and his lot can have the Space Academy and welcome — bio-research is where the future'll be, with the Outer Worlds opening up..."
A sense almost of freedom hit him. Who cared about school any more, anyway? He had the grades for AgTech already; didn't need the extra months of classes for that. Let old Lev hang around with the schoolboys, the big Fisher in a small pond. There were wider prospects out there, and they all lay ahead.
Roj had flicked the playback circuits, and was trying to make sense of the grainy data. For the first time, he looked like a small boy out of his depth. "But this isn't in your name, Paldit —"
"No... well..." He shrugged it off, grinning for the first time. "I faked a few fields on the entry form. The numbers add up, and that's all the computers care. I didn't want it getting round at home ahead of time." Never had quite worked out how he was going to break it to his father, to be honest... And then the rueful smile slid off sideways as if it had never been.
That wasn't going to be a problem, now. Wasn't going to be a problem ever again. Father, you fool...
"Just as well, the way it turned out." He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, and almost succeeded. "'Paldit' won't be too healthy a name to carry for a while, by the looks of it."
Roj looked very young and very puzzled, he thought. Wanting to help, but not knowing how. A spectre without appeal hung between them over his father's head, the only law that could not be breached at one time or another with impunity: Thou shalt not get caught. When he grew up, the kid would have to learn some time there were things you just couldn't fix.
Brannam gathered up his belongings, glancing round again at the circle of small faces, all so intent. Somehow, he didn't think Roj and this mutual protection league of his were going to stop here. It occurred to him for the first time that Fisher might not find his path from now on quite as smooth as he'd been counting on. The prospect had appeal.
It was with a genuine grin that he held out his hand for the datatape's return. "Good luck, Roj Blake. I won't forget."
Roj took the older boy's hand, with a glance at the name on the tape, and hesitated a moment before returning the grin with interest. "Good luck then — Bran Foster..."
(A/N: Sorry, it was possibly a bit abstruse of me to base this around the backstory of a character who dies within minutes of his first appearance in the first episode and is never mentioned again; but it's interesting to wonder just what triggered the original involvement of Bran Foster and other privileged members of the 'old' resistance movement.)