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grease-streaked blue walls. Better to think. But his thinking was interrupted by a low moaning. A slap, like leather hitting leather. This moaning increased. It seemed to seep through the near wall. He got up and walked to the partition. The noise was definitely louder.
Slap-crack
!
    Moaning…
    Slap…
    Slappity-crackity-slap!
    Now it was growing fainter. Bending, he found the sound was clearer next to the floor. He got down on his hands and knees, his ears alert as an animal's ears. The slapping had stopped, but the moaning was still there. It had sounded almost—but not quite—human.
    "Did ye lose something, Mr. Tohm?" a voice asked from behind.

Chapter Six
    HE LOOKED OVER his shoulder, his heart having slipped up next to his molars.
    "Ye lose something?" Jake asked.
    "Uh… yeah, a pearl fell from my cape clasp."
    "I'll help."
    "No, no. That's okay. Imitation anyway."
    "I come back just to say that I'd like her to have blue eyes, Mr. Tohm."
    "Who?"
    "The Amazon. Yer father's Amazon."
    He stood and brushed his leotards off. "Blue eyes it is."
    "Gee thanks, Mr. Tohm. I gotta go. See ye later."
    "Ya, Jake. Later."
    The giant thudded away again.
    He closed the door before going back to listen for the noise. But there was nothing. He went back to -his bunk after a few minutes and stretched out. And now a new question: what was in the cargo compartment? His cabin was right next to it. He was certain that spices, no matter how delicate, did not moan. Why had Hazabob lied to him? What was really in there?
    His eyes were growing heavy, and it took him a few minutes to figure out what the trouble was. Sleep. He had been without sleep since being placed into the Jumbo, and he had nearly forgotten about it. Pulling the tattered blanket up around his waist, he surrendered himself to the blackness, for he had pleasant memories of it
    When he woke, there was a fuzz in his mouth like a live thing trying to crawl down his throat and into his stomach. He wrinkled his face, wiped the matting from around his eyes, and blinked at the wall clock. An hour until supper. He had slept right through the heat of the day, and the rolling of the ship told him he had slept right through the launch and several hours of travel too. Pushing up, he gazed about the gloominess, yawned, and stood. He cast a last glance at the wall between himself and the cargo hold, then left the room.
    Whiffing the salty air as if it were a medicine, gagging on the slight sulfurous odor, he strolled along the deck, past the cargo compartment. There was a large, burglar-proof padlock on the door. Casually, he turned and walked away, exploring the ship at random until the gong sounded and everyone began moving below decks for supper.
    The mess chamber was the only lively room he had seen on the vessel—if painted-over mediocrity could be considered lively. There were no trimmings. The steel beams were hanging around naked, the pipes of the sewage system filling the corners and gurgling now and then as various toilets were flushed and sinks drained. Still, everything was clean and bright—light peach in color. But not only the colors of the walls and ceiling were lively, for the crew seemed jovial too. Tohm had noticed an air of melancholia, gloom, ugliness about the ship. Here, in the mess, it didn't prevail.
    The table was very long and broad, constructed of an odd wood he had never seen before, one that shone like polished stone, black and glossy. It was medieval in design, supported by crude, massive blocks of wood instead of regular legs. The chairs were a hodge-podge of styles and materials. Tohm had been given a seat near the head of the table to the left of Hazabob. "We believe in eating well," the captain said, chuckling.
    As the cooks brought in the trays, Tohm could see what Hazabob meant. The white-smocked men, gruff and burly as the crewmen themselves, flashed about, moving like lightning bolts, depositing the trays, returning with more, setting things down,