“By all means,” said Arsang. Her faint hopes evaporated as he walked alongside her, still discoursing. Now it was about his special diplomatic mission to the Earth government, undertaken to draw up the protocol of a treaty regulating the quiggsharfen trade. She thought wildly of telling him to go away, he bored her, he reached such heights of dreariness that it was like entering a different continuum…But no. She wasn’t capable of it. She would always remember, afterward, that she had hurt a lonely little being for the sake of a few days’ pleasure.

  She sat down and stared at the pneumoserv. It stated back at her. She remembered vaguely that a martini was gin and, what was it, oh, yes, vermouth, and wondered what proportions. At last she dialed for half and half.

  Fortunately, the alarm went off at that exact moment.

  Even Arsang stopped talking when the bell-tone racketed between the walls. As it died away, some woman at another table screamed and huddled close to her escort.

  A magnified voice boomed out: “Attention, all passengers, attention, all passengers. This is First Mate Lefkowitz on the bridge, addressing all passengers. The captain will speak to you in a moment. Please remain calm,” etc., etc. There was a sound of clicking relays. The amplifiers carried a whisper, “Wake up, sir, for God’s sake,” and an “uh, oh, oof, huh?” in reply, before hurriedly switching back to more alarm bells.

  “What is this outrage?” shrilled Arsang.

  “I believe—” Teresina wet her lips. Her pulse seemed very noisy, all at once. “I think it’s the signal to go to the lifeboats.”

  “Yes, lifeboats, yes, that’s it, lifeboats,” roared a sleep-fogged voice from the loudspeaker. “Lifeboats. You all remember your lifeboat drill, uh…ahhh-hoo! This is Captain Ironsmiter speaking, ladies and gentlebeings. No need to get alarmed. That is, well, naturally you have been alarmed, by the alarm bells, I mean. That’s what they’re for, isn’t it? But what I want to say, that is to say, don’t be afraid. Have faith. Nothing to be afraid of. Some or other little trouble, the automatic alarms went off. We haven’t located the trouble yet, but we will. Meanwhile, have faith. Uh, did I tell you this is Captain Ironsmiter speaking? To the passengers, that is, such as hear me, and I do hope that each and every one of you can hear me. All crewmen will report to, what, oh, yes, emergency stations. This is just an automatic alarm. Maybe the converter’s developed a slight flutter, maybe the radiation screen has weakened, temporarily, that is, but anyhow, just go to your lifeboat stations; the ones to which you have each and everyone been assigned to, and as soon as we’ve found the trouble and fixed it—that is, to say, it’s only a precaution, and—” The captain was cut out of the circuit in favor of more alarm bells.

  “I’m in Fourteen,” said Teresina. She leaped to her feet. “I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Arsang.”

  “Oh I’ll come along with you,” grumbled the Tau Cetian.

  “What?” wailed Teresina. “But you aren’t…it isn’t…I remember the drill distinctly, and your station isn’t—”

  “I know, I know, I know,” snapped Arsang. “But how should I know which one it is? Do they expect me, hereditary Lord High Gongbeater to the Prideful Court of H.A.R. Pipp XI and special diplomatic representative from the United States of Korlaband, to attend some wretched little lifeboat drill? Come along, now, come along.” He took her arm and hustled her forward with a strength remarkable in the native of a rather low-gravity planet. “Incompetence!” he shrilled. “Utter unpardonable incompetence! I shall criticize the company in the strongest terms. See if I don’t!”

  The passageways were a millstream of babbling tourists and valiantly struggling stewards, through which an occasional spaceman battled toward his post of duty. Swirled around a corner, Teresina saw Fred of the Gombar Road and remembered that he was in her section. “Can you give me some help?” she cried. “I can’t make any headway in this mess.”

  “Why, indeed, Miss Fabricant, I shall be honored,” said the mild basso, a meter above her. One huge arm bent downward in an inviting crook. Teresina sprang up and settled herself. Fred’s shaggy, blue, rhinoceros-like body plowed onward, his centauroid torso breasting a virtual bow wave of humans. Arsang followed close behind, sputtering.

  Teresina leaned toward one fan-shaped ear and said above the hubbub: “Do you think this is anything serious, Mr. Fred?”

  “I trust not,” replied the other. “Dear me, I do trust not. I was so looking forward to visiting Xenophon and seeing a virile pioneer culture at first hand.” His small trunk waggled as he lowered his head to get its purple comb under a light fixture. The beady eyes glittered with anxiety. “I must confess to severe disappointment during my stay on Earth. There was no poetic inspiration for me. None whatsoever. Oh don’t think I blame your species, please, Miss Fabricant. Everyone was most kind and hospitable. But you see, I had come as an enthusiastic student of Baudelaire. I felt I must live where he lived, just as he lived, fully to understand him. But nobody on Earth seemed interested nowadays in decadence.” His meter-wide shoulders gave an earthquake shrug. “And it is not practical to be decadent all by oneself.”

  Teresina wondered if she had traded the frying pan for the heating coils.

  Then they were at the lifeboat, through its airlock and into the seating section. The miniature spaceship would normally have carried ten humans, but since Fred was assigned to it there were only four Terrestrials present. Teresina strapped herself into a chair next to a stewardess, one Marie Quesnay. She was probably the most sensible person aboard. Besides, though it was a nasty trick, Teresina managed thus to slough Arsang off on Fred.

  “What do you think the trouble is?” she asked, half fearfully.

  Marie spread her hands. She was small, brown-haired, vivacious, the blue kirtle and red tights of her uniform pleasingly stretched by a more than adequate figure. “Oh, la, Ma’m’selle, it is not to say. As the captain announced, some little trouble. These alarms are not uncommon. One is always so vairry careful in space. An hour here we sit, maybe two hours, then it is all over with and they let us go again. And tomorrow all passengers get free champagne with dinner, to make the apology.”

  “Oh.” Teresina relaxed. She achieved a timid greeting across the aisle to the other two humans, Kamala Chatterji and Hedwig Trumbull. The latter was emitting steam-whistle noises of indignation. Kamala answered with soothing admonitions to seek peace of personality.

  Teresina remembered that the Indian girl was bound for Xenophon at her own expense (which she could well afford) as an Inner Reformist missionary. She was quite beautiful, in a dark dignified way; her pink sari enhanced a slim form. In fact, Hedwig Trumbull was the only female in this boat who was not better-looking than average. Teresina recalled that Hedwig had traded assignments with a stunning redhead…probably in hopes of a chance at the handsome crewman who was—

  Footsteps clacked in the airlock. Third Mate Newhouse strolled in, balanced on his heels, and grinned around an impudently cocked cigarette. “All comfy?” he said.

  “Where’s our pilot?” demanded the Trumbull.

  Newhouse grimaced faintly in her direction and turned eyes on her more decorative seatmate. “A slight reshuffling,” he said. “I had reason to think the trouble would require some electronics work, so I ordered Mr. Manfred to stand by in the shop. He’s the electronician’s mate, you know. And then, naturally, I had to take his place in your boat.”

  Hedwig simpered. “A fair exchange, I’m sure.” She was on the dumpy and dish-faced side, fashionably gowned, hair dyed green according to the very latest mode. She was also a spinster verging on desperation. Teresina realized that her own sufferings before Arsang were perhaps matched by those of one or two eligible bachelors on the cruise.

  “Oh this is simply thrilling!” warbled Hedwig.

  “Peace is all,” said Kamala. “One begins on the mundane level with relaxation techniques.”

  “—the current status of the quiggsharfen trade is, of course, determined by the following factors,” said Arsang,

  “Fortunately,” said Fred, “I discovered a new Terrestrial poet, the singer of largeness, of democracy, of, in short, non-decadence. I refer to Mr. Walt Whitman.

  Marie cocked a suspicious eye at Newhouse. “And what reasons had you, M’sieur, for this action?” she inquired.

  “I’m the officer here, Miss Quesnay,” huffed Newhouse. Quickly, bowing: “Though I have never before had so charming a crew member under me. His glance lit on Arsang. “Hey, there! What are you doing—”

  Teresina closed her eyes and tried to pass the time by mentally integrating ex logn X dx.

  Something buzzed. Newhouse spun on his heel. “God have mercy!” he cried, and vanished forward. The door to the pilot turret slammed behind him.

  Seconds later a giant’s fist slammed Teresina against her seat. She heard screams, but they seemed infinitely far away. The universe bellowed and pin-wheeled around her.

  Steadiness came again. Pseudogravity made a floor. Newhouse reached out in a blind automatic fashion and opened the pilot door. Beyond his seated form, Teresina saw an insane whirling in the viewscreens. It steadied as the circuits compensated for spin, aberration, and Doppler effect. She looked into naked space. The immense form of the spaceliner bulked momentarily against the stars. It vanished before she had drawn another breath.

  Newhouse came back from his inspection. The passengers stared at him out of a thickened silence.

  He held up a small haywired object. Teresina recognized, relays, resistances, and a time switch. “This is it,” he said grimly.

  “This is what? Do be more explicit,” said Arsang, spoiling the whole effect.

  “Now, now,” soothed Fred, “let Third Mate Newhouse explain in his own words. I, though fetterless, large and various as the people itself, great sprawling clam’rous unsanitary body of Democracy, will hark to the singing mechanic, blithe and strong.”

  “Quiet!” roared Newhouse. More softly: “If you please. This is a serious matter. We are in danger of our lives.”

  “Ohh!” wailed Hedwig. She leaped from her chair and flung herself at Newhouse. He was caught off balance. They went down together in a heap. “Save me!” she yammered.

  Kamala tugged vainly at her gown, saying, “Peace of soul, peace is all.” Fred tried to help, but couldn’t push past the crowding humans in the aisle.

  It was Marie Quesnay who muttered something like “Nom d’une vieille vachel!” and applied a few brisk swats with the hand to the indicated part of Hedwig. While the various untanglements, tears, recriminations, and soothings went on, Teresina crouched back in her own seat.

  Great Gauss, she thought in horror, what am I trapped into?

  Arsang tugged her sleeve. “I see you have the good sense to remain clear of that disgraceful melee,” he said, “Congratulations. You are almost Numan. Numa is, of course, the name of my planet, Tau Ceti Two, in the principal language of my country, the United States of Korlaband. I do not say your mind is quite on a level with, say, that of a baron or a knight, or even a peasant (I use crude English equivalents) of the U.S.K., but you would not make a bad barbarian of the Ortip Highlands. You progress, Miss Fabricant, you show distinct progress.”

  He was cut short by Newhouse, who bellowed down all others, smoothed his own hair and dignity, and said in a quick harsh voice:

  “I found this gimmick hooked into the control circuit of the release mechanism. Obviously there’s been sabotage. Doubtless the ship’s alarms were tampered with also, to get us aboard this boat at the time it was scheduled to be thrown free. The communication circuit to the ship has been left open. This means our departure didn’t register. They don’t know we are missing. Since I’m not normally on duty at this time, they probably won’t notice we’re gone for hours.”

  “I should think,” said Kamala Chatterji with a calm approaching boredom, “that we could follow the ship.”

  “Oh, we can try,” said Newhouse gloomily. “But the top secondary speed of this boat is about 500 lights. The ship is going nearly 2000: we don’t share that any longer, now when we’re out of its drive field. Furthermore, we’ve no measurable chance of pursuing it in its own precise track. Imagine us deviating by, oh, ten degrees, which is conservative. Imagine them turning around when they miss us, but having no idea of the time at which we left. At speeds like that, can you visualize the volume of space they’d have to search? It’s hopeless.”

  Hedwig Trumbull huffed. “I must say, if this is someone’s idea of a joke, it is very childish,” she exclaimed. “I am sure this is all the company’s fault, for not giving psychiatric tests before selling tickets. Now we shall have to limp off to some miserable colonial world, and wait weeks until—”

  Newhouse set his face into still bleaker, though handsome, lines. “I’m afraid it is sabotage,” he said. “For purposes of murder.”

  “Oh, no,” whispered Teresina. “That’s impossible. No one would—”

  “Every spacecraft is supposed to carry a pilot’s manual with navigation tables,” said Newhouse. “Ours is missing.”

  “What?” yelped Fred. It is something to hear a yelp in basso profundo, but no one appreciated the experience very much.

  Newhouse waved a hand at the turret viewport, visible through the open door. “Look at all those stars,” he said. “This boat carries supplies for about six months, in which time it could go a distance of some 250 light-years. Do you know how many stars lie in that small radius? I estimate it at ten million. No one can remember the coordinates of so many—or even of the rather small percentage which has thus far been visited let alone explored or colonized. I can identify a few super-brilliant giants, such as Rigel, but they’re much too far for us to reach. Out in a little-known, thinly settled wilderness like this, you’re completely dependent on your navigator’s bible. And ours is missing!”

  For a while, even Arsang was silent.

  “We could look—” offered Teresina at last.

  “From star to star? That’s precisely what we must do,” said Newhouse. “But don’t get your hopes up. We’ll try G-type suns within a reasonable range, but the probability of our hitting one with a settled planet is so small we might as well forget it.”

  “A planet which is habitable, though, M’sieur?” asked Marie. “I would be satisfy with that, perhaps, me.”

  Newhouse shrugged. “If you know any prayers, I advise you to say them.” There were plenty of stars near the middle of the main sequence. There generally are. Newhouse used the pilot instruments, including a spectroscope and a luminosity meter, for a while. Then he swung the boat around and kicked it into full secondary drive.

  “I picked a sun largely at random,” he said. “All I had to go by was that it should be roughly Sol-type and not too far away. You see, only humans have been pioneering this region, and they’d pick such stars. If we don’t find them but do find a comfortable planet, our nonhuman friends here will like it too, though the sunlight may have a peculiar color to them. I can’t say just how long it’ll take us to get there. The shape of a line-of-sight approach curve depends on such things as the star’s intrinsic velocity, which I can’t determine accurately. But it shouldn’t be more than about ten Earthdays. Meanwhile, we may as well relax and let the autopilot do the work.”

  “Could it be one of the colonized stars?” asked Kamala.

  “Of course not!” shrilled Arsang. “Who ever heard of colonizing a star? The imprecision of you lesser races! Might it have a colonized planet, Newhouse?”

  “I told you, who knows?” shrugged the officer. “The chances are immensely against it, though. They’re not quite so much against a habitable world: one which may even have been visited once, be on record in the Survey files. But if it has aborigines—or simply if no one has gotten around to starting a settlement there—it might not be visited again for a century.” He smiled. “It’s a bit crowded in the turret, but if you want to join me there, one by one, I can point out our destination. Er…all but you, Mr. Fred, I’m afraid.”

  “What does it matter?” said the large being in a cheerful tone. “I, Fred, transcend pettiness, I, standing and yodeling on the island Mannahatta (it’s really a spaceboat, but that’s not very euphonious) I see the brawling westward swarm, I, myself, me, Fred.”

  Marie accepted the invitation. The door closed behind her and Newhouse. There was a scuffling sound, a slap, and Marie stamped out saying things which made Teresina glad her own French was so limited. Newhouse rubbed his cheek, grinned brashly, and said: “Next.”

  The grin faded as Hedwig Trumbull pushed her way down the aisle. He carefully left the door open this time. She closed it. There was a sound of more scuffling and Newhouse emerged, looking hunted.

  Arsang rapped for order with a three-fingered fist. “Silence!” he squealed. “Quiet! Listen! Attend! Conference!” When he had them looking at him, he swiveled large green eyes from one to another and said angrily: “We have not yet determined who is responsible for this outrage. At a time when the Lord High Gongbeater to the Prideful Court of His Awe-Inspiring Refulgence has been shanghaied, yes, I shall use strong language, kidnapped, I say, with murderous intent, from a mission of vital importance, I could well say of galactic implications, namely the regulation of the quiggsharfen trade, at such a time it is no time to waste time staring at insignificant stars!”

  “I don’t recall that you were even supposed to be on this boat,” clipped Newhouse.

  “That has nothing to do with it!” yelled Arsang, turning saffron.

  Teresina overcame shyness enough to say, “Yes, it does seem strange. Someone must have wanted to get rid of one of us. I mean, isn’t that probable? Maybe?”

  Newhouse bowed. “It’s impossible that anyone could have wanted to be rid of you, Miss Fabricant,” he purred.

  “Now wait,” said Kamala Chatterji. Her voice and the dark aristocratic face seemed unusually down-to-earth. (No, not that, thought Teresina; no such luck.) “The point is well taken. It is hard to see why anyone would do such a thing, except to eliminate a person expected to be on this lifeboat. From civilization, at least, if not the present plane of existence. That leaves out Mr. Arsang and Mr. Newhouse as intended victims; they only came aboard at the last minute.”