letters said _Level of
Administration--Officers' Deck_. Ringg pushed at a door and said,
"Captain Vorongil?"

"I thought you were on leave," said a Lhari voice, deeper and slower
than most. "What are you doing, back here more than ten milliseconds
before strap-in checks?"

Ringg stepped back for Bart to go inside. The small cabin, with an
elliptical bunk slung from the ceiling and a triangular table, was
dwarfed by a tall, thin Lhari, in a cloak with four of the black bands
that seemed to denote rank among them. He had a deeply lined face with a
lacework of tiny wrinkles around the slanted eyes. His crest was not the
high, fluffy white of a young Lhari, but broken short near the scalp,
grayish pink showing through, the little feathery ends yellowed with
age. He growled, "Come in then, don't stand there. I suppose Ringg's
told you what a tyrant I am? What do you want, feathertop?"

Bart remembered being told that this was the Lhari equivalent of "Kid"
or "Youngster." He fumbled in the capacious folds of his cloak for his
papers. His voice sounded shrill, even to himself.

"Bartol son of Berihun in respectful greeting, _rieko mori_."
("Honorable old-bald-one," the Lhari equivalent of "sir.") "Ringg told
me there is a vacancy among the Astrogators, and I want to sign out."

Unmistakably, Vorongil's snort was laughter.

"So you've been talking, Ringg?"

Ringg retorted, "Better that I tell one man than that you have to hunt
the planet over--or run the long haul with the drive-room watches short
by one man."

"Well, well, you're right," Vorongil growled. He glared at Bart. "On the
last planet, one of our men disappeared. Jumped ship!" The creases
around his eyes deepened, troubled. "Probably just gone on the drift,
sight-seeing, but I wish he'd told me. As it is, I wonder if he's been
hurt, killed, kidnaped."

Ringg said, "Who'd dare? It would be reported."

Bart knew, with a cold chill, that the missing Klanerol had not simply
gone "on the drift." No Lhari port would ever see Klanerol, Second Class
Astrogator, again.

"Bartol," mused the captain, riffling the forged papers. "Served on the
Polaris run. Hm--you _are_ a good long way off your orbit, aren't you?
Never been out that way myself. All right, I'll take you on. You can do
system programming? Good. Rating in Second Galaxy mathematics?"

He nodded, hauled out a sheet of thin, wax-coated fabric and his claws
made rapid imprints in the surface. He passed it