“The doctor analyzed them?”

“That will be a while,” said Remal. “I gave one or two, I forget how many, to my servant, and he became extremely sleepy.”

“Your scientific curiosity is almost Western,” said the clerk. He waited for something polite from the mayor, something polite with bite in it, but the mayor ignored the remark and quite unexpectedly came to the point. It was so unexpected that the captain did not catch on for a while.

“This person,” said the mayor and smoothed his shirt, “is your passenger, captain. I don’t quite see the situation.”

“Eh?” said the captain.

“I hardly see how he can stay.”

“You don’t see?” said the captain. He himself saw nothing at all. “Well, right now he’s in the hospital,” he said. It sounded like the first simple, sane thing to him in a long time.

“Yes. You put him there, captain.”

“I know. Just exactly…”

“Why don’t you take him out?”

“Take him out? But I’m leaving this evening.”

“Take him with you.”

“But he’s sick!”

“He’s alive. And your passenger.”

The captain made an exasperated swing with both arms, which caused the bed to creak and the glass to fall over.

“Whitfield,” he said, “what in hell-what-”

“He wants you to take the man from the box along with you,” said the clerk. Then he took water into his mouth and made a stream come out, like a fountain.

“I will not! ”

“Your passenger…”

“And stop calling him my passenger!” yelled the captain. “He’s a stowaway and there’s no law on land or sea which tells me, the captain, that I must transport a stowaway!”

Next came a silence, which was bad enough, but then the mayor put his teacup down and shrugged slightly. This made the captain feel gross and useless.