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busy as all Hell. When they left, there were platters of unknown meat chops, two dozen servings on each platter. There were large bowls of peas and pea-like yellow vegetables steaming heartily, forming ghosts above the heads of the thirty sailors sitting the length of the table. Huge baskets of rolls and chips of butter were everywhere along the ebony surface so that no one had to ask for the bread to be passed. Two different varieties of beans were offered to Tohm. He took both, and both were delicious. He had been accustomed to a simple spread in his village, a few courses, always the same. The great variety nearly overwhelmed him. The wine glass was never empty; one of the cooks saw to that And the wine was best of all. It was black, absolutely Stygian, and bittersweet like no fruit he had ever tasted.
    While they were consuming the gobs of cream and cake that was dessert, Hazabob leaned over and tapped his arm. "Ye won't be forgetting to tell yer father about the way we fed ye?"
    "I won't be forgetting a bit," Tohm answered, his mouth stuffed.
    "Good," Hazabob said, spooning cream into his mouth. "I like ye, boy."
    There was no orderly dismissal after supper. The men began to leave in ragtag order, staggering away with bloated bellies to go to sleep and prepare for the next day, dreaming about what the cooks would whip up for that supper.
    "I believe I'll turn in," Tohm said to Hazabob.
    "Oh?"
    "Food makes me sleepy."
    "Ya," the captain said, starting on his second dish of cake. "Ya, ye was probably used to those prissy dinners with little sanditches and cookies."
    "And caca tea," Tohm added, smiling. He had read about that in the floating library.
    "Yeah." Hazabob laughed, slapping the table with the palm of his hand. "Yeah, and caca tea!"
    Caca tea was an aphrodisiac of the wealthy.
    "Excuse me," Tohm said, standing.
    "Umm," Hazabob replied, his face buried in dessert.
    He left, climbing the companionway to the desk. The moons were out, two silver featureless faces on the blackness of the sky. The water slopped against the ship, and that was the only sound. Tohm walked casually to his cabin, closed the door behind. He would have locked it, but they had not seen fit to supply him with any such safeguard. He turned to the wall and looked it over. He just might be able to get through.
    Standing in one corner, he sighted along the stubby barrel of the gas pistol. He didn't want to penetrate the wall and blow up something on the other side; he wanted to blast open the wall That meant an angled shot. The gas pistol was a marvelous little weapon. It was good for a hundred or so shots before a refill was needed, and it was not bulky. A minute pellet of compressed gas left the barrel. When it sunk into the object fired at, resistance caused heat and expanded the pellet The "explosion" caused thereby could down any man or beast. Or, he hoped, a metal wall. He wanted to strike the wall so that the pellet would have to travel through it at an angle, thus giving it time to expand before it crashed through into the storeroom. He depressed the stud.
    Almost immediately, the wall ruptured, split back. From the same position, he fired again. Again. When he put down the pistol, the rent was large enough to squeeze through. He squeezed.
    The place was dark. Very. There was a musty odor, part of it the dankness of any closed space, part of it food scraps, organic wastes. He stumbled about, looking for a light switch, found a palmer next to what seemed to be the outline of the door, and flooded the place with light. The door would be watertight, and certainly, no cracks should be there to emit light onto the deck.
    Blinking his eyes, he surveyed the room. There were a number of crates, unmarked, stacked about, lashed to the walls in columns and to rings set in the floor. There were walkways between the cargo boxes, but he could see nothing that might have moaned.
    There was a rustle.
    He looked to the floor for rats.
    "Well," a voice