She got up suddenly and left. Max again had to soothe Mr. Chips, but there was no one to soothe him. He decided that the day that he and Sam disappeared over a horizon and lost themselves could not come too soon.

Eldreth returned next day but in company with a Mrs. Mendoza, the devoted owner of a chow who looked much like her. Eldreth treated Max with the impersonal politeness of a lady "being nice" to servants, except for a brief moment when Mrs. Mendoza was out of earshot.

"Max?"

"Yes, Miss?"

"I'll 'Yes, Miss' you! Look, Max, what was your uncle's name? Was it _Chester_ Jones?"

"Why, yes, it was. But why ..."

"Never mind." Mrs. Mendoza rejoined them. Max was forced to drop it.

The following morning the dry-stores keeper sought him out. "Hey, Max! The Belly wants you. Better hurry--I think you're in some sort of a jam."

Max worried as he hurried. He couldn't think of anything he had done lately; he tried to suppress the horrid fear that Ellie was involved.

It was clear that Mr. Giordano was not pleased but all that he said was, "Report to the Purser's Office. Jump." Max jumped.

The Purser was not there; Mr. Kuiper received him and looked him over with a cold eye. "Put on a clean uniform and make it quick. Then report to the Captain's cabin."

Max stood still and gulped. Mr. Kuiper barked, "Well? Move!"

"Sir," Max blurted, "I don't know where the Captain's cabin is."

"What? I'll be switched! Able deck, radius nine oh and outboard." Max moved.

The Captain was in his cabin. With him was Mr. Samuels the Purser, Mr. Walther the First Officer, and Dr. Hendrix the Astrogator. Max concluded that whatever it was he was about to be tried for, it could be nothing trivial. But he remembered to say, "Steward's Mate Third Class Jones reporting, sir."

Captain Blaine looked up. "Oh, yes. Find a chair." Max found one, sat down on the edge of it. The Captain said to the First Officer, "Under the circumstances, Dutch, I suppose it's the best thing to do-- though it seems a little drastic. You agree, Hal?"

The Purser agreed. Max wondered just how drastic it was and whether he would live through it.

"We'll log it as an exception, then, Doc, and I'll write up an explanation for the board. After all, regulations were made to be broken. That's the end of it." Max decided that they were simply going to space him and explain it later.

The Captain turned back to his desk in a manner that signified that the meeting was over. The First Officer cleared his throat. "Captain ..." He indicated Max with his eyes.

Captain Blaine looked up again. "Oh, yes! Young man, your name is Jones?"

"Yessir."

"I've been looking over your record. I see that you once tried out for chartsman for a short time in the _Thule?_"

"Uh, yes, Captain."

"Didn't you like it?"

"Well, sir." Max asked himself what Sam would say when confronted by such a ghost. "It was like this ... to tell you the truth I didn't do much except empty ash trays in the Worry--in the control room." He held his breath.

The Captain smiled briefly. "It can sometimes work out that way. Would you be interested in trying it again?"

"What? Yes, _sir!_"

"Dutch?"

"Captain, ordinarily I see no point in a man striking twice for the same job. But there is this personal matter."

"Yes, indeed. You can spare him, Hal?"

"Oh, certainly, Captain. He's hardly a key man where he is." The Purser smiled. "Bottom deck valet."

The Captain smiled and turned to the Astrogator. "I see no objection, Doc. It's a guild matter, of course."

"Kelly is willing to try him. He's short a man, you know."

"Very well, then ..."

"Just a moment, Captain." The Astrogator turned to Max. "Jones ... you had a relative in my guild?"

"My uncle, sir. Chester Jones."

"I served under him. I hope you have some of his skill with figures."

"Uh, I hope so, sir."

"We shall see. Report to Chief Computerman Kelly."

Max managed to find the control room without asking directions, although he could hardly see where he was going.

9 CHARTSMAN JONES

The change in Max's status changed the whole perspective of his life. His social relations with the other crew members changed not entirely for the better. The control room gang considered themselves the gentry of the crew, a status disputed by the power technicians and resented by the stewards. Max found that the guild he was leaving no longer treated him quite as warmly while the guild for which he was trying out did not as yet accept him.

Mr. Gee simply ignored him--would walk right over him if Max failed to jump aside. He seemed to regard Max's trial promotion as a personal affront.

It was necessary for him to hit the slop chest for dress uniforms. Now that his duty station was in the control room, now that he must pass through passengers' country to go to and from work, it was no longer permissible to slouch around in dungarees. Mr. Kuiper let him sign for them; his cash would not cover it. He had to sign as well for the cost of permission to work out of his guild, with the prospect of going further in debt to both guilds should he be finally accepted. He signed cheerfully.

The control department of the _Asgard_ consisted of two officers and five men--Dr. Hendrix the Astrogator, his assistant astrogator Mr. Simes, Chief Computerman Kelly, Chartsman First Class Kovak, Chtsmn 2/C Smythe, and computermen Noguchi and Lundy, both second class. There was also "Sack" Bennett, communicator first class, but he was not really a part of the control gang, even though his station was in the Worry Hole; a starship was rarely within radio range of anything except at the very first and last parts of a trip. Bennett doubled as Captain Blaine's secretary and factotum and owed his nickname to the often-stated belief of the others that he spent most of his life in his bunk.

Since the _Asgard_ was always under boost a continuous watch was kept; not for them were the old, easy days of rocket ships, with ten minutes of piloting followed by weeks of free fall before more piloting was required. Since the _Asgard_ carried no apprentice astrogator, there were only two officers to stand watches (Captain Blaine was necessarily an astrogator himself, but skippers do not stand watches); this lack was made up by Chief Computerman Kelly, who stood a regular watch as control officer-of-the-watch. The other ratings stood a watch in four; the distinction between a computerman and a chartsman was nominal in a control room dominated by "Decimal Point" Kelly--what a man didn't know he soon learned, or found another ship.

Easy watches for everyone but Max--he was placed on watch-and-watch for instruction, four hours on followed by four hours off in which he must eat, keep himself clean, relax, and--if he found time--sleep.

But he thrived on it, arriving early and sometimes having to be ordered out of the Worry Hole. Not until much later did he find out that this stiff regime was Kelly's way of trying to break him, discover his weakness and get rid of him promptly if he failed to measure up.

Not all watches were pleasant. Max's very first watch was under Mr. Simes. He crawled up the hatch into the control room and looked around him in wonderment. On four sides were the wonderfully delicate parallax cameras. Between two of them Lundy sat at the saddle of the main computer; he looked up and nodded but did not speak. Mr. Simes sat at the control console, facing the hatch; he must have seen Max but gave no sign of it.

There were other instruments crowded around the walls, some of which Max recognized from reading and from seeing pictures, some of which were strange-- tell-tales and gauges from each of the ship's compartments, a screen to reproduce the view aft or "below," microphone and controls for the ship's announcing system, the "tank" or vernier stereograph in which plates from the parallax cameras could be compared with charts, spectrostellograph, dopplerscope, multipoint skin temperature recorder, radar repeater for landing, too many things to take in at once.