to Bart, pointed. Bart
hesitated, and Vorongil said impatiently, "Standard agreement, no hidden
clauses. Put your mark on it, feathertop."

Bart realized it was something like a fingerprint they wanted. _You'll
pass anything but X-rays._ He pressed the top of one claw into the wax.
Vorongil nodded, shoved it on a shelf without looking at it.

"So much for that," said Ringg, laughing, as they came out. "The Bald
One was in a good temper. I'm going to the port and celebrate, not that
this dim place is very festive. You?"

"I--I think I'll stay aboard."

"Well, if you change your mind, I'll be down there somewhere," Ringg
said. "See you later, shipmate." He raised his closed fist in farewell,
and went.

Bart stood in the corridor, feeling astounded and strange. He _belonged_
here! He had a right to be on board the ship! He wasn't quite sure what
to do next.

A Lhari, as short and fat as a Lhari could possibly be and still be a
Lhari, came or rather waddled out of the captain's office. He saw Bartol
and called, "Are you the new First Class? I'm Rugel, coordinator."

Rugel had a huge cleft darkish scar across his lip, and there were two
bands on his cloak. He was completely bald, and he puffed when he
walked. "Vorongil asked me to show you around. You'll share quarters
with Ringg--no sense shifting another man. Come down and see the chart
rooms--or do you want to leave your kit in your cabin first?"

"I don't have much," Bart said.

Rugel's seamed lip widened. "That's the way--travel light when you're on
the drift," he confirmed.

Rugel took him down to the drive rooms, and here for a moment, in wonder
and awe, Bart almost forgot his disguise. The old Lhari led him to the
huge computer which filled one wall of the room, and Bart was smitten
with the universality of mathematics. Here was something he _knew_ he
could handle.

He could do this programming, easily enough. But as he stood before the
banks of complex, yet beautifully familiar levers, the sheer exquisite
complexity of it overcame him. To compute the movements of thousands of
stars, all moving at different speeds in different directions in the
vast swirling directionless chaos of the Universe--and yet to be sure
that every separate movement would come out to within a quarter of a
mile! It was something that no finite brain--man or Lhari--could ever
accomplish, yet their limited brains had built these computers that
_could_ do it.

Rugel watched him,