Like most young men, I've experimented. I find homosexual relationships too alien, too sterile....

I can't picture Kriegshauser being attractive to man or woman. Beyond being unwashed, he's the ugliest man I've ever met. His pursuer must get off on the bizarre.

Beauty is in the eye, and so forth. And the cook has personality, as they say. He's a likable rogue.

"My problem... have you thought about it?"

"A great deal," I lie. "Have you? You know where the leak was?" Kriegshauser is an insecure, dependent-type personality. He wants decisions made for him. He will, if he survives the Climbers and the war, make Navy his career. The Ship's Services assignments draw people who need secure, changeless niches.

While in the bombards I encountered a nonrated laundryman who hadn't been off ship for thirty years. Approaching compulsory retirement, he was a bundle of anxieties. He committed suicide when his waiver request was denied.

Navy was his family, his life. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do when he got there.

Kriegshauser shrugs. He doesn't want the burden of decision.

Why help a man who won't help himself? "You don't seem that interested in getting off. Any special reason you won't tell me who it is?"

"I'd just rather not, sir."

"Don't want to make him mad?"

"I guess."

"What did you expect me to do?"

"I don't know, sir. I just thought..."

"This way I can't do anything. You'll have to work it out yourself. You can cut his throat, give in, or call his bluff."

"But..."

"I'm not a magician. I can't push a button and give you three wishes."

I've had no luck identifying the culprit, though I admit I haven't looked hard. The obvious bisexuals aren't the blackmailing type. (Homosexuals are screened into segregated crews.) Their dalliances are matters of convenience. Eliminating them, the dead, and myself leaves a lot of possibilities.

Not that I care, but it's got to be somebody who wants to stay in the closet. An officer? Piniaz or Varese, maybe?

The first- and second-mission men are out. And anyone who maintains an obvious friendship with the cook. Reasoning the possibilities down to a half-dozen is easy. But the exercise is pointless.

"Look. This guy has something to lose. Everybody does."

"We've been so busy-----"

I control my temper. "See me tomorrow. After you've thought it over. You have to do more than wish."

"Okay." Kriegshauser's disenchanted. He does want magic.

"Come on, Fearless. Back up here. Where'd we leave off? Yeah. How do I stay healthy in Tannian territory?"

Command wouldn't really get physical. But messengers of expose have vanished into Psych detention before. That happened to the man who tried breaking the Munitions Scandal, didn't it?

I've developed a certifiable paranoia. Comes of being an outsider. "Know what I should be doing, Fred? Instead of playing pillow? Duplicating my notes."

Fearless is used to my maunderings. He ignores them. Pushing his head against my hand, he demands another ear-scratching.

I wander into Ops. They're busy, busy, busy. Especially Fisherman. Heavy traffic outside.

We're in norm. Carmon has the display tank active. Four blips inhabit it. Three are red. He's singing bogey designator numbers in the middle thirties.

The Commander hasn't ordered general quarters. Pointless. I'm the only man who missed the first whiff of danger. I'll never make a Climber man.

Our neighbors aren't interested in us. In norm, coasting, powered down to minimum, we're hard to see.

"Doubt they'd bother us if they did spot us," Yanevich says. "They're after bigger game."

"How long to make it, this way?"

"Our inherent is high." He grins. "Maybe only six or seven months."

"One hundred ninety-six days, fourteen hours," Westhause volunteers.

"A long haul when the cupboard is bare." Still, we're close as spatial distances go.

"Yeah," Yanevich says. "I'm sizing up that drumstick of yours."

"What's going on out there?" I have a notion already. I don't like it.

"Shit, man, I don't know ." He looks a little grim. "There's always traffic around Canaan, but not like this. They're everywhere."

"Not just a training exercise?"

Yanevich shrugs. With enough falseness to say he knows an answer he can't tell. "We'll slide in.

Mini-jumps when we can get away with them. Into the inner belt first. Some emergency stations there they haven't found yet."

"It's going to take a while, then."

"Yeah." He looks bleak. He's begun to realize what it means to be Commander. "A while. Look. Tell that cat-loving cook to turn loose if he doesn't want to be on the menu himself."

It's getting to him. He's changing. "You hear that, Fearless?" The cat followed me here. "Fang him on the ankle." To Yanevich, "I really think he has. Scraped bottom, I mean. He's talking about water soup."

"He's always talking about water soup. Tell him I'm talking cat soup."

"Change the subject." I'm hungry. Generally, food is fuel to me. But there're limits. Water soup!

Throdahl and Rose—O Wonder of Wonders—have found a new subject. The feast they're going to have before cutting their swath through the splittail.

"Looks like our probability coming up, Commander," Westhause says. "Good for a program three."

I glance at the tank. Just one red blip, moving away fast. There're no dots on the sphere's boundary, indicating known enemies beyond its scope.

Program three, I assume, will bite a big chunk off the road home.

The Old Man says, "Give me one-gee acceleration. Stand by for hyper." He turns, growls, "Anything shows, I want to know yesterday. Capiche, Junghaus? Berberian?"

Evidently we're slipping through a picket zone.

"Steve, you going to use your seat?" Yanevich shakes his head. I seat myself. Fearless occupies my lap. The Commander arrests my attention. Amid the disrepair, stench, and slovenliness he nevertheless stands out. His apparel is dirtier, more tattered, and hangs worse than anyone else's. He's a haggard, emaciated, aged young man. His wild shapeless beard conceals his hollow cheeks, but not the hollow eyes that make him look like a corpse of twenty-six haunted by a century-old soul.

Maybe twenty-seven. I've lost track of the date. His birthday is sometime around now.

His eighth patrol. He has to survive two more, each with Squadron Leader's added cares. Pray for him----- He won't be able to handle it. Not unless this next leave is a long one. He has to put Humpty together again. Maybe I'll stay awhile. Maybe he can talk off the ship.

I don't think he's been eating. He's more gaunt than the rest of us, more dry and sallow of skin.

We all sport psoriasis-like patches. He has a splash creeping up his throat. Scurvy may turn up soon, too.

The veins in his temples stand out. His forehead is compressed in pain. His hands are shaky. He keeps them in his pockets now.

He's on the brink, going on guts alone. Because he has to. He has a family to lead safely home.

I understand him just a little better. This patrol has been the thing too much, the burden too great to bear. And still he drives himself. He's a slave to his duty.

And Yanevich? The shoulders being measured for the mantle? He knows. He sees, understands, and knows. In Weapons much of the time, I've missed many of the turning points in his growth, in his descent into a terror of his own future.

But he's young. He's fresh. He possesses a soul as yet unconsumed. He's good for a few missions.

If the Commander breaks, he'll step in. He has enough left.

"Time, Commander."

"Jump, Mr. Westhause." The Old Man's voice hasn't the resonance or strength it once had, but is cool enough.

Westhause. Our infant-genius. Silent, competent, imperturbable. A few more patrols and he'll be First Watch Officer aboard some moldering, homecoming Climber, staring at a burned-out Commander, into the burning eyes of his own tomorrow. But not now. Now he sees nothing but his special task.