Chapter IV

“Sit down, Captain,” said Nestir, when the captain entered. “No. Over there, in the comfortable chair. There. Are you comfortable, Captain?”

“Of course I am.”

“Good. I have a question to ask you, Captain.”

“I say?”

Nestir rubbed his bald head. “Sir,” he said by way of preamble, “I know you have the greatest sensibility in questions of duty.”

“That’s quite so, y’know. I pride myself upon it, if I do say so.”

“Exactly. Argot y calpex. No sacrifice is too great.”

“True; true.”

“Well, then, say the first day of Wenslaus, that would be--ah, a Zentahday--I may depend upon you to wed Wanda Miller, the bosun’s daughter, yes?”

“No,” said the captain.

“Come now, sir. I realize she is the daughter of a crewman, but--”

“Father,” said the captain, “did I ever tell you about the time I led an expeditionary force against Zelthalta?”

“I don’t believe you have.”

“Then I will tell you. Came about this way. I was given command of fifty-three thousand Barains. Savage devils. Uncivilized, but fine fighters. I was to march them ninety-seven miles across the desert that...”

“Captain! I fear I must be very severe with you. I will be forced to announce in the mess hall this evening that you have refused to do your duty when it was plainly and properly called to your attention.”

“Very well, Father,” the captain said after several minutes. “I will do it.”

He was trembling slightly.

That morning was to be the time of the captain’s wedding. He had insisted that it be done in privacy. For the ceremony, he refused to make the slightest change in his everyday uniform; nor would he consent to Nestir’s suggestion that he carry a nosegay of hydroponic flowers. He had intended, after the ceremony, to go about his duty as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened; but after it was done with, the vast indignity of it came home to him even more poignantly than he had imagined it would.

Without a word, he left the priest’s stateroom and walked slowly, ponderously, with great dignity, to his own.

It was a very fine stateroom. The finest, but for Nestir’s, in the whole ship. The velvet and gold drapes (his single esthetic joy) were scented with exotic perfume. The carpet was an inch and a half thick.

He walked through his office without breaking his stride.

The bed was large and fluffy. An unbroken expanse of white coverlette jutting out from the far bulkhead. It looked as soft as feather down.

Without even a sigh, he threw himself upon the bed and lay very, very quiet. His left leg was suspended in the air, intersecting, at the thigh, the plane of the coverlet at forty-five degrees; the number of degrees remained stiffly, unrelaxingly forty-five.