anet in '39. I was closer to your home world the year
before that," the stoker said. "I was captain of a destroyer. If I'd had
a cruiser's range, I would have reached it." He looked at the Jek.
"Where were you?"

"I was here when you were."

"I want to speak to your ship's captain."

"All right. I'll drive you over."

The stoker nodded, and they walked over to his vehicle together. They
drove away, toward the Jek ship.

"All right, let's get back to work," another Jek said to MacReidie and
myself, and we went back to unloading cargo.

* * * * *

The stoker came back to our ship that night, without his duffelbag. He
found me and said:

"I'm signing off the ship. Going with the Jeks."

MacReidie was with me. He said loudly: "What do you mean, you're going
with the Jeks?"

"I signed on their ship," the stoker said. "Stoking. They've got a
micro-nuclear drive. It's been a while since I worked with one, but I
think I'll make out all right, even with the screwball way they've got
it set up."

"Huh?"

The stoker shrugged. "Ships are ships, and physics is physics, no matter
where you go. I'll make out."

"What kind of a deal did you make with them? What do you think you're up
to?"

The stoker shook his head. "No deal. I signed on as a crewman. I'll do a
crewman's work for a crewman's wages. I thought I'd wander around a
while. It ought to be interesting," he said.

"On a Jek ship."

"Anybody's ship. When I get to their home world, I'll probably ship out
with some people from farther on. Why not? It's honest work."

MacReidie had no answer to that.

"But--" I said.

"What?" He looked at me as if he couldn't understand what might be
bothering me, but I think perhaps he could.

"Nothing," I said, and that was that, except MacReidie was always a
sourer man from that time up to as long as I knew him afterwards. We
took off in the morning. The stoker had already left on the Jek ship,
and it turned out he'd trained an apprentice boy to take his place.

* * * * *

It was strange how things became different for us, little by little
after that. It was never anything you could put your finger on, but the
Jeks began taking more goods, and giving us things we needed when we
told them we wanted them. After a while, _Serenus_ was going a little
deeper into Jek territory, and when she wore out, the two replacements
let us trade with the Lud, too. Then