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which could add to its profit margin by a fat
percentage if it weaseled on its employment contracts. This was a firm big
enough and inarguably profitable enough to tolerate such minor budget items as
repatriation of an Earthsider . An extra five percent
on the freight charges for a single consignment of Earthbound pelts would more than absorb her passage home.
    And
she was not going to give them the slightest hint, the slightest suggestion of
a hint, that she had infringed the contract.
    Since the interview at which she'd been
engaged, she hadn't seen Shuster again. But he was the first person she spotted
when she presented herself at the spaceport an hour ahead of the scheduled
time, and she recalled with sick anticipation that he had claimed to be
directly in charge of the Zygra supervisors, so there
was no chance of eluding him.
    She
mentally squared her shoulders, and marched boldly towards him. The group of
spacemen with whom he was talking noticed her before he did, and one or two of
them stared in a flattering manner. Then the senior among them, a lean type
with second-mate braids on his tunic, tapped Shuster's arm and pointed towards
her.
    "What's
the girl doing here, d'you know?" The words carried
distinctly above the racket from the stemgates of the
ship, where autohandlers were packing in empty
pelt-crates that rang with hollow booms every time they were moved.
    Shuster
half-turned, and recognized her. Was he still smarting from the smack on the
face? She couldn't tell by his expression, nor by the tone he
used to answer the inquiry.
    "Her?
Oh, that's the new supervisor taking over from Evan."
    "What?"
The second mate recoiled as though he'd been struck under the chin, and two or
three of his companions exclaimed simultaneously. "Now look here,
Executive! You can't do a thing like that to—"
    "Shut
your mouth," Shuster told him coolly. "If you want to keep your berth
aboard this ship . . . ?" The last word rose to a gently questioning note,
and the second mate swallowed hard and held his tongue.
    Eyes
searching for some clue to the reason for the outburst, all her misgivings
returning in full force, Kynance stopped a pace
distant from Shuster.
    "Congratulations,"
he said icily. "I'm informed you're the best trainee the company has ever
had for the post you're taking on."
    "Thanks," Kynance muttered. It seemed safest to stifle her dislike of the man until he made some
overt reference to the reason for it.
    Let him fust try and talk me out of it again!
    "Executive!"
the second mate said. "Does that mean you won't—?"
    "If you poke your snout in one more time
where it doesn't belong," Shuster snapped, "I'll cut it off. Is that
clear?"
    Kynance shivered. The looks on all these faces,
except Shuster's own, were such as she would only have expected to see at a
funeral. There must be a catch in the deal after ail-that was the only
explanation!
    But she'd persuaded herself there couldn't
be, because the Zygra Company was too prosperous to
bother with cheating its casual employees. Anyway, what sort of cheating was
possible? By now she could have recited the contract word for word from
memory, and there wasn't a loophole. The grounds for voiding it were set forth as
clearly as anyone could wish, and provided she kept her head she'd last out the
year.
    "Go
to your cabin," Shuster was saying. "It's clearly arrowed from this
lock here: number ninety. And remember that you are not to interfere with the
running of this ship in any way. Delaying a crewman in the exercise of his duty
constitutes interference, and when the ship is at space all crewmen are
considered to be on duty twenty-four hours a day. In short, you will break your
contract and lose your chance of repatriation if you talk to anybody except me.
Is that understood?"
    He
could have been reading her mind. Her plan had been formed a moment earlier: to
corner one of these glum-looking men and pump him for explanations. He'd
sensed it and forestalled her with orders