(He knew it was a mistake, even then. Tiny was driving his band through the first four bars of Where Was Tomorrow? He recognized it for an omen.)

She told him her name. She was a big, bony girl, but her face was pinched a little round the eyes and mouth. It wasn't simply the mark of a port lady — although they too are tense and contained as if perpetually struggling to keep their substance from evaporating off into the void.

Her clothes glittered and dissolved irregularly as the kaleidomat light found frequencies critical to the opacity of the material.

'Captain Truck, how would you like a job?'

He shook his head.

'Come back in two weeks. I shall be stoned on Sad al Bari here for two weeks.' He demonstrated by waving his hands about like airplanes. 'Bombed out Unless Tiny gets desperate.'

'It isn't a haulage job, Captain. You won't need to fly.'

'They're the only kind I take. I've got a Chromian bos'n to support. Really, you should find someone else. Not that I'm not grateful for the offer.'

He thought for a moment.

'Besides which,' he said, 'you aren't hiring me.' For a loser, that was pretty acute.

She leaned forward earnestly, put her elbows on the table. She toyed with the dregs of his knickerbocker glory, then clasped her hands.

'That's true. But my sponsor will pay better for a few weeks of your time than any comparable haulage job, and you didn't make much on that last seed run.'

He had to give her credit for that. 'You,' he said, 'have been talking to somebody. They were right. But I don't need money that badly. In two weeks, yes.'

'Captain Track,' she said, drawing her chair closer to the table, 'what if I told you this was a chance to do something for the Galaxy?'

He sighed.

'I'd say you have picked a loser. If it's politics, Miss Seng, double screw it.' He beamed at her. 'I'm not very political, you see,' he explained.