"Certainly looks that way," I agreed. All the required checks had been done: engine room, thrusters and stardrive, computer, cargo customs—

I frowned. "What's this 'sealed cargo section' business?"

"Just what it says," he told me. "The cargo hold is situated in the aft-centersection of the ship, and was sealed on Gamm against all entry or inspection.

The Gamm port authority license is there."

"Came in from Gamm, did you?" I commented, finding the license on the nextcard down. "Quiet little place."

"Yes. A bit primitive, though."

"It is that," I agreed, stacking the cards together again. I glanced at thetopcard again, making careful note of the lift and clearance codes that had beenassigned to the Icarus, and handed them back across the table. "All right, you've got yourself a captain. What's the up-front pay?"

"One thousand commarks," he said. "Payable on your arrival at the ship in themorning. Another two thousand once we make Earth. It's all I can afford," headded, a bit defensively.

Three thousand in all, for a job that would probably take five or six weeks tocomplete. I certainly wasn't going to get rich on that kind of pay, but Iprobably wouldn't starve, either. Provided he picked up the fuel and port dutyfees along the way, of course. For a moment I thought about trying to bargainhim up, but the look on his face implied it would be a waste of time. "Fine,"

I said. "You have a tag for me?"

"Right here," he said, rummaging around inside his jacket again, hisexpressiontwitching briefly with surprise that I had not, in fact, tried to squeeze himfor more money as he'd obviously expected me to do. Briefly, I wondered whichdirection that had moved his opinion of me, but gave up the exercise as bothunprofitable and irrelevant.

His probing hand found what it was looking for, and emerged holding athree-by-seven-centimeter plastic tag covered with colored dots. Another Ihmisquirk, this one their refusal to number or in any other way differentiate thetwo hundred-odd landing squares at their spaceport.