haven't yet learned regulations, a
week of solitary confinement may give you a chance to study them."

"I ... but, sir--" The other man retreated. His uniform made a loose
rainbow splash across metal and plastic. Coffin alone, of all the
fleet's company, held to the black garments of a space service long
extinct.

"But, sir," said Mardikian. His voice seemed to have fallen off a high
cliff. "Word from Earth!"

"Only the duty officer may enter the bridge without permission," Coffin
reminded him. "If you had anything urgent to tell, there is an
intercom."

"I thought--" choked Mardikian. He paused, then came to the free-fall
equivalent of attention. Anger glittered in his eyes. "Sorry, sir."

Coffin hung quiet a while, looking at the dark young man in the
brilliant clothes. _Forget it_, he said to himself. _Times are another.
You went once to e Eridani, and almost ninety years had passed when you
returned. Earth was like a foreign planet. This is as good as spacemen
get to be nowadays, careless, superstitious, jabbering among each other
in languages I don't understand. Thank God there are any recruits at
all, and hope He will let there continue to be a few for what remains of
your life._

The duty officer, Hallmyer, was tall and blond and born in Lancashire;
but he watched the other two with Asian eyes. No one spoke, though
Mardikian breathed heavily. Stars filled the bow viewport, crowding a
huge night.

Coffin sighed. "Very well," he said. "I'll let it pass this time."

After all, he reflected, a message from Earth was an event. Radio had,
indeed, gone between Sol and Alpha Centauri, but that was with very
special equipment. To pinpoint a handful of ships, moving at half the
speed of light, and to do it so well that the comparatively small
receiver Mardikian had erected would pick up the beam--Yes, the boy had
some excuse for gladness.

"What was the signal?" Coffin inquired.

He expected it would only be routine, a test, so that engineers a
lifetime hence could ask the returning fleet whether their transmission
had registered. (If there were any engineers by then, on an Earth
sinking into poverty and mysticism.)

Instead, Mardikian blurted: "Old Svoboda is dead. The new Psychologics
Commissioner is Thomas ... Thomson ... that part didn't record clearly
... anyway, he must be sympathetic to the Constitutionalists. He's
rescinded the educational decree--promised more consideration to
provincial mores. Com