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with the crew's quarters located on the upper decks. While Racart went in search of an officer to assign them quarters, Seth stood at the rail amidships, looking down at the water slapping between the wharf and the hull. He had been on only one sea-going ship in his life—a huge stabilized liner on the Sladar Ocean of Rethmere—and the prospect now of a week on a rumbling work ship was enough to make him wish he were back in space. Several passing crewmen nodded cordially to him; nevertheless, he felt wholly out of place. Racart, of course, would be quite at home; he regularly sailed on a sister ship of Ardello .
    "Mr. Perland, would you come with me?" asked a voice behind him. A young man Racart's size put out his hand. "I'm Ferris Tarn, filter hand third—I'll show you to your bunk. Racart will meet you later." Seth shook hands and lugged his bag after the sailor. They went down a companionway in the after deckhouse and made their way through several cabins to the male bunkroom. Tarn pointed to a third-level bunk and a small stowage compartment and said, "You sleep there and keep your things here. The head is up forward." The bunk was tiny, even smaller than Seth's bunk on Warmstorm , and there was about half a meter of headroom between it and the ceiling. He envisioned bashing his head into the ceiling several times a night.
    Tarn introduced him to several of the crew, then offered to take him on a tour of the ship. Seth readily agreed, and they spent the next half hour exploring the interior levels, much of it at first glance meaningless to Seth, and then above decks in and around the superstructure. At night the top deck was a gleaming array of strange shapes in unequal pools and splashes of light; the air was chilly and salty, and Seth felt as if they were already at sea.
    They descended again to the crew's level, and Tarn took him past the female section. "Just so you'll know where it is," Tarn remarked with a grin.
    "There you are!" Racart called. He was standing in the shadows of the passageway with a young woman. Seth waved his thanks to Tarn and joined them. The girl was a golden-skinned Ernathene, apparently in her early twenties, and a regular Ardello crewmember. Her name was Mona Tremont, and she greeted Seth with a smile but, he thought, something less than total enthusiasm. "Mona is a sonar tech."
    "And you are the starpilot," Mona said, not quite interrupting Racart, but giving Seth no chance to respond, either. Her tone was ambiguous, suggesting either admiration or cloaked derision, but Seth could not tell which. "Are you going to study us, or the Nale'nid?" she asked, this time in a lighter voice.
    Seth shrugged. "Both, I suppose. I want to see your operation in action, but the main reason I'm along is to learn about the Nale'nid—if they make an appearance."
    "They will," said Mona. "After what happened at the plant, I don't know why we're even making this run. But we're inviting trouble of some sort, for sure." Her eyes carried a dark cynicism that was roughly disguised in her voice. "I hope your 'planetary mission'—isn't that what you call it?—doesn't blow its top and start muscling about with the Nale'nid. It will only make things worse, you know. Racart, see you later." With that, she disappeared into the woman's quarters, leaving Racart and Seth alone in the passageway.
    Racart smiled shakily. "She was one of the ones I was afraid would not be too sympathetic to your cause. Don't worry, you'll like her, but it might take a while." Seth accepted that noncommittally; he wondered just what Racart's relationship with Mona was, but decided to ask at another time.
    Later they went topside to watch the departure. Seth felt a sense of loss in watching the lights of the colony recede against the shore; Lambrose was his only point of reference on this world. Racart was glad to be back at sea, and Seth envied his enthusiasm; it was the way he felt when lifting for a new flight on Warmstorm . The air was