e years earlier; a _cafe-con-leche_ type with shrewd eyes,
nervous hands, silver-streaked hair that showed a defiance of geriatric
injections, a slight, wiry body that couldn't have gone more than one
hundred and twenty pounds at 1.0 gee, and probably the best Master
Spaceman extant. Only discipline kept the grin off my face. But he was
on the horn, getting traffic clearance, so I didn't interrupt.

The others were unknowns, the sort characterized by old spacers as
"pretty boy, recruitment ad types," but they looked competent; I figured
a medic and a spread of ratings; counting Moya, a basic GS unit. I'd
expected both a con crew and a standby. Either this was the total of
available personnel, or the brass had decided not to risk more men than
absolutely necessary. If I'd had illusions about the assignment, they
would have faded at that instant.

It's this way in Interstel: you're taught to be a loner. You're expected
to have absolute confidence in your own abilities and complete
skepticism about the talents of others. You're supposed to be
suspicious, cynical, courageous, and completely trustworthy. And you're
not expected to have friends. Which, obviously, in the light of the
aforementioned and part of what is yet to come, could serve as the
definition of redundancy. You're required to weed out incompetents
wherever you find them without prejudice, mercy, or feeling. The
standing order is survival, yet you are expected to lay down your life
gladly if the sacrifice will save one, pink-cheeked, short-time,
assistant teamer who gives the barest suggestion that he might some day
grow up to be a man and repay the thousands of credits squandered upon
his training in that profound hope. Which, stated another way, has
become the Eleventh Commandment of special agents: _Remember the body
corporeal and keep it inviolate_; and, if the reaction of the
rank-and-file of Galactic Survey to Interstel is used as criterion, is
the best-kept secret in the explored, physical universe. "The agent's
burden," Gravis calls it.

Moya's jaw dropped when he caught sight of me--apparently he had been
told only to expect an agent--but he recovered quickly.

"Hello, Callum," he barked. "I won't say it's a pleasure. Stow your gear
and strap down."

The claxon sounded stridently, and the inflectionless voice of the
robopilot said: "Sixty seconds."

I got into the indicated gee couch and squirmed around seeking some
measure of comfort. It had b