"Swill," said Claude as he lowered his empty glass. "Some cheap muck I bought on Aarn. They don't know how to make wine. Now on Vine they make a wine which would wake the dead. Thick and rich and with the color of blood. A man could live on the wine of Vine. Live and die on it and never regret wasted opportunities."
Dumarest said softly, "As you do?"
"I was there once," said the engineer as if he had not heard the interjection. "At harvest time. The girls carried in the grapes and trod them beneath their bare feet. The juice stained their legs and thighs, red on white and olive, thick juice on soft and tender flesh. As the day grew warmer they threw off all their clothes and rolled naked among the fruit. It was a time of love and passion, kissing and copulating in great vats of succulent grapes, the juice spurt shy;ing and staining everyone so that all looked like creatures of nature."
Dumarest took a little more wine, waiting for the engineer to extinguish his dream.
"There was a girl," whispered Claude. "Soft and young and as white as the snows found on the hills of Candaris. We trod the grapes together and joined bodies as we mated in the juice. For a week we loved beneath the sun and the stars with wine flowing like water and others all around laughing and singing and laving their bodies with the juice. The harvest on the following season must have been excep shy;tional if what they believed was true."
"Fertility rites," said Dumarest. "I understand."
"You understand." The engineer poured himself more of the thin wine. "I did not. I thought she loved me for myself alone, not because she thought that a stranger would bring fresh seed to the mating, new energy to the fields. For a week she was mine and then it was over." He gulped the wine and stared broodingly into the glass. "Often I wonder if my grandsons tread the grapes as I did, if my grand shy;daughters yield themselves as did she."
"You could find out," suggested Dumarest. "You could go back."
"No. That is a thing no man should ever do. The past is dead, forget it, let us instead drink to the future."
"To the future," said Dumarest, and sipped a little more wine. "Tell me about our passenger."
"Yalung?" Claude blinked as he strove to focus his atten shy;tion. "He is just a man."
"How did you meet?"
"In a tavern. I was looking for business and he approached me. He had money and wanted a High passage to the Web."
"It's just as well he didn't want to travel Low," said Dumarest. "He would never have made it."
"The caskets?" Claude shrugged. "We rarely use them; the journey between planets is too short. Even on the longer trips Sheyan usually adjusts the price and lets any passengers ride under quicktime. The Web is compact," he explained. "Stars are relatively close. Anyway, we don't often cany passengers."
"Let's talk about the one we have now."
"What is there to talk about? He wanted a passage and could pay for it. He approached me. What else is there to know?"
"He approached you." Dumarest was thoughtful. "Didn't you think it strange? A man with money for a High passage wanting to travel on a ship like this?"
Claude frowned, thinking. "No," he said after a while. "It isn't strange. Not many ships head for the Web and those that do only go to established planets, the big worlds with money, trade, and commerce. From there shuttle ves shy;sels take freight and passengers to the other planets. Yalung wants to roam the Web and this is the best way for him to do it."
"So he intends to stay with us?"
"That's what he said." Claude chuckled as he looked at Dumarest. "He hasn't really any choice. I told you that ships are few in the Web. You could be stranded on a planet for months waiting for a vessel, and then you'd have to go where it took you. That's where we come in. Charter, special freight, speculative trading, things like that. We could may shy;be touch a score of worlds before landing at one of the big termini." His smile grew wider as he saw the other's expres shy;sion. "Didn't Sheyan tell you?"
"The details? No."
"He wouldn't. He needed a handler more than he needed to teach the innocent. But it isn't so bad. We'll get along and could even have a little fun. You'll get used to it, Earl. You might even get to like the life."
"Like you?"
Claude lost his smile as he groped for the bottle. "No, Earl, not like me. But then you don't have to be like me. No one does."
No one, thought Dumarest as he left the engineer to his anodyne. Not Nimino who found his refuge in religion, or Sheyan who had his command if nothing else. Not Lin who carried a headful of stars and who looked on danger as a spice to living instead of the constant threat to existence it really was. No one needed to hit the bottle-but some shy;times it could help.
Dumarest washed and changed from the protective cloth shy;ing he had worn while working on the caskets, changing into his uniform and the cap with the cracked visor. His soft shoes were soundless on the worn flooring as he made his way towards the bridge. At the salon he halted and looked inside. Yalung, the sole occupant, sat before a table on which were spread a handful of variously colored crystals. He held a pair of tweezers in one pudgy hand and his eyes were narrowed as if to increase his vision.
He didn't move. Not even when Dumarest entered the compartment and stood at his side. Still he sat like a man of stone, not even his eyelids flickering, unconscious of the man at his side. He looked dead but he was far from that. He was living at a reduced tempo, the magic of quicktime slowing his metabolism and time-awareness to a fraction of normal. They had left Aarn two days ago, but to the passen shy;ger it was less than an hour.
Gently Dumarest reached out and touched the pudgy hand, gently, for the relative speed of his hand could deal a savage blow. The skin was firm, more youthful than it seemed, the small indent vanishing as soon as he removed the pressure.
Stooping he examined the scattered gems, noting the trapped fire smoldering within their crystalline depths, the perfection of facets and polish. They, at least, were genuine -as was probably everything else about the passenger. Yalung could be exactly what he claimed and his presence on the ship due to nothing more than sheer coincidence.
Dumarest straightened and left the salon, making his way to the bridge. He knocked and entered when Sheyan growled a summons. The captain was alone, sitting in the big control chair, surrounded by instruments which did what no ordinary man could ever do. He looked very small in the confines of the chair, the box on his lap somehow seem shy;ing to accentuate his diminution. It was of metal, strongly chased and fitted with a combination lock. It could, prob shy;ably, be smashed open but never rifled without leaving trace. He clung to it as if finding warmth and comfort from the decorated metal.
"You want something?"
"The caskets are now fully operational," said Dumarest. "Some minor work remains to be done on the cargo re shy;straints, but that is all. Aside from a complete cleaning," he added. "I can't say anything about the rest of the ship."
"That's right." Sheyan twisted his head so as to stare at his handler. "Your job is to look after the cargo, not to tell me what needs to be done. And a little grime never killed anyone yet."
"That depends," said Dumarest, "on just where the grime is. I wouldn't care for it in an open wound, for example."
"The Moray is not an open wound."
"It isn't a very efficient ship either," said Dumarest blunt shy;ly. He looked about the control room. "Shouldn't the naviga shy;tor be on duty?"
Sheyan reared up in his chair. "I decide who shall be on duty!" he snapped. "I am the captain. If you choose to for shy;get it just remember what will happen if I decide you are insubordinate." He sank down again, his anger dissolving as rapidly as it had come. "You don't understand," he said. "You're thinking of the big ships with their big crews and the spit and polish they use to run them. The Moray isn't like that. A little dirt doesn't matter as long as the generators aren't affected. More crew means smaller shares and they are small enough as it is. Just ride along with us as we are and you'll be all right. Try fighting and it will get you nowhere."
Dumarest frowned, thinking of the man he had first met in the captain's office, comparing him with the man who now sat in the control chair. Physically they were the same, but somehow there was a difference. He had deliberately tried to ignite anger and had received, instead, a near apology. It was as if Sheyan had been cowed by something, his spirit crushed so that he wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Looking at the vision screens Dumarest could guess what it was.
Space was immense-the distances between the stars im shy;possible to conceive by a human brain. The figures could be learned but they meant nothing; they were so vast as to be totally outside the limits of human comprehension. Light took years to travel between the stars; ships could do it faster but the distances remained the same. If anything could reduce a man's arrogance it was the cold indifference of the galaxy, the knowledge that in the universe he was less than a minute bacteria crawling on the face of creation.
Quietly he said, "Permission to use quicktime, captain?"
"What?" Sheyan jerked, his hands convulsive as they gripped the box. "Quicktime? Yes. Yes, by all means."
"A general issue?"
"Nimino has his own. I trust him to use it with discretion. You may give it to the rest."
"As you order, captain," said Dumarest. "And yourself?"
"No. I don't need it. That is, I don't want it." Again Sheyan's hands closed on the edges of his box. "That will be all, handler."
Alone, the captain relaxed in his chair, trying not to grip the box, to think of what it contained. Dumarest had an shy;noyed him, upset him rather, but how could the man even begin to guess? Like the rest he was closed in by walls of metal, protected, shielded from what lay without. Only Nimino could really begin to understand because, like him shy;self, the navigator stared with electronic eyes at the naked menace of the stars.
And they were menacing. They waited, confident in the knowledge that they must win, that they were greater than man and anything he could do. Let his ships probe among them, land on their worlds, diminish space by the magic of the Erhaft field, they would still conquer. They would always conquer because men were mortal and they were not. They could afford to wait and watch and, perhaps, glow a little brighter whenever a ship died.
As the Moray would die-and he with it.