Mark Annuncio entered the Captain's cabin and licked his lips in a futile attempt to get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth. He felt lightheaded and heavyhearted.
At the moment, he would have given up his Service status to be back on Earth.
He thought wishfully of his own familiar quarters; small but private; alone with his own kind. It was just a bed, desk, chair, and closet, but he had all of Central Library on free call. Here there was nothing. He had thought there would be a lot to learn on board ship. He had never been on board ship before. But he hadn't expected days and days of space-sickness.
He was so homesick he could cry, and he hated himself because he knew that his eyes were red and moist and that the Captain would see it. He hated himself because he wasn't large and wide; because he looked like a mouse.
In a word, that was it. He had mouse-brown hair with nothing but silken straightness to it; a narrow, receding chin, a small mouth, and a pointed nose. A! he needed were five or six delicate vibrissae on each side of the nose to make the illusion complete. And he was below average in height.
And then he saw the star field in the Captain's observation port and the breath went out of him.
Stars!
Stars as he had never seen them.
Mark had never left the planet Earth before. (Dr. Sheffield told him that was why he was space-sick. Mark didn't believe him. He had read in fifty different books that space-sickness was psychogenic. Even Dr. Sheffield tried to fool him sometimes.).
He had never left Earth before, and he was used to Earth's sky. He was accustomed to viewing two thousand stars spread over half a celestial sphere, with only ten of the first magnitude.
But here they crowded madly. There were ten times the number in Earth's sky in that small square alone. And bright!
He fixed the star pattern greedily in his mind. It overwhelmed him. He knew the figures on the Hercules duster, of course. It contained between one million and ten million stars (no exact census had been taken as yet), but figures are one thing and stars are another.
He wanted to count them. It was a sudden overwhelming desire. He was curious about the number. He wondered if they al had names; if there were astronomic data on all of them. Let's see...
He counted them in groups of hundreds. Two-three-he might have used the mental pattern alone, but he liked to watch the actual physical objects when they were so startlingly beautiful-six-seven-
The Captain's hearty voice splattered over him and brought him back to ship's interior.
"Mr Annuncio. Glad to meet you."
Mark looked up, startled, resentful. Why was his count being interrupted?
He said irritably, "The stars!" and pointed.
The Captain turned to stare. "What about them? What's wrong?"
Mark looked at the Captain's wide back and his overdeveloped posterior. He looked at the gray stubble that covered the Captain's head, at the two large hands with thick fingers that clasped one another in the small of the Captain's back and flapped rhythmically against the shiny plastex of his jacket.
Mark thought, What does he care about the stars? Does he care about their size and brightness and spectral Classes?
His lower lip trembled. The Captain was just one of the non-compos. Everyone on ship was a noncompos. That's what they called them back in the Service. Noncompos. All of them. Couldn't cube fifteen without a computer.
Mark felt very lonely.
He let it go (no use trying to explain) and said, "The stars get so thick here. Like pea soup."
"All appearance, Mr. Annuncio." (The Captain pronounced the c in Mark's name like an s rather than a ch and the sound grated on Mark's ear.) "Average distance between stars in the thickest duster is over a light-year. Plenty of room, eh? Looks thick, though. Grant you that. If the lights were out, they'd shine like a trillion Chisholm paints in an oscillating force field."
But he didn't offer to put the lights out and Mark wasn't going to ask him to.
The Captain said "Sit down, Mr. Annuncio. No use standing, eh? You smoke? Mind if I do? Sorry you couldn't be here this morning. Had an excellent view of Lagrange I and II at six space-hours. Red and green. Like traffic lights, eh? Missed you all trip. Space legs need strengthening, eh?"
He barked out his "eh's" in a high-pitched voice that Mark found devilishly irritating.
Mark said in a low voice, "I'm all right now." The Captain seemed to find that unsatisfactory. He puffed at his cigar and stared down at Mark with eyebrows hunched down over his eyes. He said slowly, "Glad to see you now, anyway. Get acquainted a little. Shake hands. The Triple G.'s been on a good many government-chartered cruises. No trouble. Never had trouble. Wouldn't want trouble. You understand."
Mark didn't. He was tired of trying to. His eyes drifted back hungrily to the stars. The pattern had changed a little.
The Captain caught his eyes for a moment. He was frowning and his shoulders seemed to tremble at the edge of a shrug. He walked to the control panel, and like a gigantic eyelid, metal slithered across the studded observation port.
Mark jumped up in a fury, shrieking, "What's the idea? I'm counting them, you fool."
"Counting-" The Captain flushed, but maintained a quality of politeness in his voice. He said, "Sorry! Little matter of business we must discuss."
He stressed the word "business" lightly.
Mark knew what he meant. "There's nothing to discuss. I want to see the ship's log. I called you hours ago to tell you that. You're delaying me."
The Captain said, "Suppose you tell me why you want to see it, eh? Never been asked before. Where's your authority?" Mark felt astonished. "I can look at anything I want to. I'm in Mnemonic Service."
The Captain puffed strongly at Ms cigar. (It was a special grade manufactured for use in space and on enclosed space objects. It had an oxidant included so that atmospheric oxygen was not consumed.)
He said cautiously, "That so? Never heard of it. What is it?" Mark said indignantly, "It's the Mnemonic Service, that's all!. It's my job to look at anything I want to and to ask anything I want to. And I've got a right to do it."
"Can't look at the log if I don't want you to."
"You've got no say in it, you-you nomcompos."
The Captain's coolness evaporated. He threw his cigar down violently and stamped at it, then picked it up and poked it carefully into the ash vent.
"What the Galactic drift is this?" he demanded. "Who are you, anyway? Security agent? What's up? Let's have it straight. Right now."
"I've told you all I have to."
"Nothing to hide," said the Captain, "but I've got rights."
"Nothing to hide?" squeaked Mark. "Then why is this ship called the Triple G?"
"That's its name."
"Go on. No such ship with an Earth registry. I knew that before I got on. I've been waiting to ask you."
The Captain blinked. He said, "Official name is George G-Grundy. Triple G. is what everyone calls it."
Mark laughed. "All right, then. And after I see the logbook, I want to talk to the crew. I have the right. You ask Dr. Sheffield."
"The crew, too, eh?" The Captain seethed. "Let's talk to Dr. Sheffield, and then let's keep you in quarters till we land. Sprout!"
He snatched at the intercom box.