This watch, 1st Officer Putin had chosen a stout ring-bollard upon which to rest his enormous fundament.

He sat at the break of the commanddeck, the annular structure built upon a level with the maindeck.  Overhanging the circumference of the hull (providing a scenic gallery for the privileged as well as some protection for the boats) the commanddeck housed the captain, some of his officers, and the more important passengers.  Here, officers and passengers dined, in comparison to less-fortunate others, amidst formal splendors.  The commanddeck lay below the quarterdeck, a railed area like the maindeck open to the stars, from which ship's operations were ordinarily supervised.  Here, however, Putin could gather about him all of the ship's boys---including the new one---for the day's lesson, and still keep a careful watch.

"Now, comrades, mark me.  Whatever its manifold other intricacies, interstellar navigation's the most meticulous of arts, requiring detailed charts..." He thumbed over his shoulder, indicating the commanddeck behind him where the all-important documents, the captain's log, and instruments were kept.  "----seasoned judgment, an' a knowledge of abstruse mathematics."

He was answered by a general groan of boyish distaste which a greater disciplinarian, and lesser teacher, might have punished them for.  Putin, with nothing academic in his background, harboring similar feelings upon the subject, let it pass.  Properly motivated, young minds could master any subject, once they knew it stood between them and whatever it was that they hotly desired.

"Travelers aboard a starsailing ship..." He raised a hairy right arm to point forward, while pointing aft with his left.  No blacksmith could boast muscles to match those of a man who had spent his youth mixing and kneading bread-dough in hundred-weight batches.  "---are as unable to see where they're going, as where they've been."

One of two younger boys appeared puzzled.  The new one just looked miserable, and with reason.   Lacking a more useful aptitude, he had, in the previous watch, been set to hunting clots of gnutmold in the aftmost recess of the ladderwell.  A carnivorous vegetable pest encountered early in mankind's exploration of the Deep, gnutmold was so tough and mean it had render even shipboard rats obsolete.  It could be dealt with only by searching out individual clumps, pulping them before they scurried away with a cable's end wrapped in barbed steel wool, and soaking the remains with noxious chemicals to destroy the spores, seeds, cuttings and runners it was capable of reproducing itself from.  Combating the stuff was a matter of endless losing warfare, yet it was essential, for the stuff ate anything. Without the effort expended, vain as it was, to expunge it, it would have draped the starship, mastfoot to figurehead, in loathsome, lethal festoons.  The new boy was bedraggled, his coverall shredded in a dozen places, countless smears of blood upon it and his skin.  Gnutmold did not bleed.

"Bear with me, kids."  Putin cleared his throat.  "Even if they could, seeing, in the end, proves to be less than no help, owing to the laggard speed of light which lends a picture of a universe forward and aft, thousands of years dated."

Spreading broad hands and raising his eyebrows, he looked among his students for sign of enlightenment.  His explanation did not seem to have helped.  Despite the simplicity of the concept, it was, at first---in particular by children of untutored farmers and planetbound fisherfolk---only grasped with difficulty.  Converting his hand-spread gesture to a shrug, Putin sighed.  Taken in his youth by a raid upon his port-city home, he had killed fourteen slavers (or fifteen, the count varied in the telling) with a kozhura, an outsized, razor-sharp oven spatula.  Neither farmer nor fisher, at heart the mighty Putin stayed a peasant, nonetheless.  He still baked, between drills, landfalls, and battles, assisted by his pair of stout and merry wives.  Putin was a patient man, with all the time in the galaxy.  Although they came to him by diverse pathways, all the boys (save this latest with his snotty accent and murderous habits) were as humble in origin as himself.  Allowance must be made (it did not occur to him that allowance had never been made for him) for none possessed the advantage of education.  In Putin's experience, vast and long, all would come right in the end.

"Be brave, comrades, it gets worse.  The degree of visual obsolescence varies with the distance. Also, some destinations and departures are too small, dim, obscured by intervening gases, brighter stars or clusters, or else too far away to register on the human eye!"  By their expressions, Putin could tell this made more sense to the boys.  They stopped their squirming and waited with what even resembled patience for him to get to something else they could grasp.  "Upon the face of the known Deep, and along the more common routes between those long-settled and more densely populated systems considered 'civilized'---"

"Excuse me, Mr. Putin," this from one of the older boys who was less forward than he appeared.  This was understandable, as it was yet to be seen what today's topic would be. "Who considers these planets civilized?"

"Why, their inhabitants, who else?" Putin answered, laughing.  He had sympathy for the boy who'd asked, both coming, as they did, from planets derided by Romanova as backwaters.  "Now, where was I?  Aha!  Upon more commonly traveled routes, currents of subatomic particles---tachyons good, neutrinos bad, and everything relevant in-between---and their fluctuations have long since been mapped by generations of careful (or lucky) explorers."  Putin leaned forward, elbows upon knees, whispering in a conspiratorial tone.  "In the Deep, as remains to be known, mapping these anomalies constitutes the first and most vital task.  The careless (or unlucky) wayfarer leaves nothing behind to guide those who come after him."

This time their reaction was a shudder.  Each had heard tales from the older hands of starships disappearing.  Zakh, too, from Terrible Yvan dramafiles, and Mistress Maria's histories.  They assumed new meaning, and new terror, when he could glance up as he chose and gaze out through the purge-field----dangerous itself, as he well knew, although designed as a protection against the eternal night---into the uncaring, deadly face of the galactic Deep.

Mr. Putin laughed.  Zakh had not been surprised to learn the Zilvagabond's second-in-command was a pastrier.  He appreciated Putin as a gigantic, good-natured, somewhat barbarous lout, this nearly comical first officer whom all the crew called "The Bread Man."  He was one whose laughter came easy and deep---Zakh liked this about him---and the warmth and power of it was such as to dispel any terror ever a young boy lost sleep over.  At present, although neither was aware of it, he constituted the only bright spot in the boy's life, all that preserved a remnant of his humanity.  Zakh's prospects for advancement may have brightened (had he cared), but, as his companions in misery began to note, it was a special wrath which brought the misspent days of Rodya, and maybe Zilvagabond's 3rd officer, to an end.  Zakh, they came to see, was by no means superhuman in his savagery.  He, in turn, found that promotion did not relieve him of a need for conspicuous readiness to fight for food and safe sleeping quarters.

Putin laughed again.  "Nothing behind," he repeated, shuddering himself.  "On happier occasions, involving sufficient care, da, and luck, vast fortunes, indeed whole galactic empires, have come to owe their sovereignty, prosperity, their very existence to this kind of esoterica.  A bigger treasure it is, although you won't believe me until you're frosty-templed like myself, than ever was hoarded by premier or brigand!" He watched their eyes.  Some lessons could never be taught, but only learned, oftentimes over and over, the hard way.  To young minds, treasure was treasure.  It would require years, and no small experience of life, before they came to believe him upon this point---the value of information---or even that he'd been serious about it.

"Pardon me, sir," Zakh, having to a degree recuperated from his labors, and emboldened by the boy who had spoken, indicated the view-distorting field which enwrapped their starship.  "How is such data safely collected?"

Narrowing his eyes, Putin inspected the newcomer, wondering, as ever in such a circumstance, whether the question, undistracted as it seemed by the candy-word "treasure," confirmed his judgment that granting this particular boy special attention might pay dividends.

"Sometimes, when a vessel is in the perilous process of feeling her way through new territory upon her figurative tippy-toes---" He made a spidery finger-gesture.  All, save one, laughed at the funny little phrase coming out of this giant.  Zakh looked impatient, even a little insulted.  A warm feeling spread through Putin; he was starting to believe the boy might be something special after all, killer though he was.  "Or more often," he continued, "in the known Deep, when she's been swept off her intended course in a storm..." He paused to chuckle, as if at a vivid memory.  "Or when the man responsible for her management is a bad navigator---ahem!---a starsailing ship might at intervals be brought below lightspeed for corrective sightings."

This engendered an expression of curiosity upon the faces of more than one.  Good lads, Putin thought with satisfaction, or none would be here listening to him.  He should know, who had handpicked them.  Mustn't overlook a one.  Young Sorokin might be a prize, but they were all good (sort of) boys.

"You're way ahead of me.  She'll heave-to, all save smallsails furled, field dampened to a needed minimum, inertia thereby increased to its normal, speed-inhibiting quality.  Her captain, if he's desperate, might even run out the lubberlift, the better to achieve maximum parallax for sightings, or to let the length of its cable taste the winds of the Deep."

The Zilvagabond, like two-decked frigates and other vessels her size and bigger, was too fragile to make planetfall, instead lowering passengers and cargo from synchronous orbit. As with other decks of specialized function, the liftdeck, in addition to housing beneath the mastfoot of the lubberlift and kiloversts of cable, held cargo and crew quarters.  Putin observed each of the boys imagining the loneliness of a starship brought to a total halt in the heartless bosom of the Deep, without planet or even nearby sun in sight.  How much worse might it be all alone---swinging at the end of a cable tens of thousands of versts from the only source of warmth, light, and friendship---he was sure they daren't imagine.

"After our next port..." he chuckled, "---when our esteemed 2nd officer did finish his overhaul, perhaps we can persuade the captain to run the lift out as exercise.  In emergencies, this is necessary, as Mr. Sorokin has indirectly pointed out.  Above lightspeed, outside the influence of the purge-field, the universe appears to those on board to shrink---da, as you have already learned, philosophers and superstitious starsailors will gleefully agree it really does---to a blinding hot blue light infinitely far forward, and a duller red one aft."  He pointed aloft---forward.  As each of the boys knew without following the line of his finger, it was as he described it.  "All else is blackness---till one starship comes within purge-field range of another."

A stir went through them as they sensed the exciting part arriving.

"The effects of fields intersecting are detectable by instrument at over 100 versts, increasingly discernable from vivid color and pattern changes as the range closes."  None of the boys had found occasion to confirm this for himself, although they looked forward to it with greater enthusiasm than their officers.  The Deep was, at the best of times, a savage place.  The purge-fields of passing vessels coalesced into a big all-encompassing envelope (just like soap bubbles) making it possible for attackers to board.  It imposed asymmetric stresses upon both purge-field and hull structure, in particular when the vessels were upon differing courses.  Experienced starsailors felt the chance meeting of two ships, even of the same imperium-conglomerate, seldom brought good fortune.  "An old deck hand will claim---and often demonstrate---that he can sense an approaching vessel before the captain's instruments."  No one disputed it for, despite the lying and bragging which took place aboard, each had begun to learn the amazing things some hands were capable of.  "He'll offer estimable guesses as to her course, condition, class, and..."

"Idlers below!  Rigging hands report to the maindeck" Claxons shrilled about them as a change of watches commenced.   The spell was broken, the day's lesson come to an end.  As the arose from where they sat at Putin's feet, dispersing to various responsibilities, Putin held one of them back.  "Mr. Sorokin."  

"Sir!"

"I can see that many questions lurk behind your eyes."

"Sir?"

"Come along then.  We'll see if we can't answer them."  Zakh nodded as the first officer arose from his improvised seat with a mighty grunt, and followed the man's broad back, winding across the crew-crowded  maindeck and its ordered clutter, to the man's quarters, opposite the captain's.  Putin grinned as he turned the knob and entered the cabin.  "Good afternoon, my comrades!  How comes the batch I started this morning?"  The aromas of fresh, yeasty dough, a hot and well-used oven, of a thousand seasonings and spices, some familiar, some exotic, rolled about Zakh like a thick, hypnotizing fog as he passed through the door and shut it behind him.  Putin lowered his voice a trifle.  "And, by the by, I've brought a guest for tea!"

"How nice, Dracul beloved!" A familiar female voice was audible to Zakh from somewhere in front of the giant.  "Your dough seems perfectly normal to me.  That yeast you brought up from that ringed planet will do nicely.  Will you ask our guest---wherever he might be---whether he'd like to wash up?"

Zakh stepped around the first officer. Smiling at him, the eyes of Anna Putin crinkled shut above her round, red cheeks. She was seated beside one of Putin's ovens---Zakh could count four in the room, all of different sizes---peering over the tops of wire-rimmed spectacles as her plump fingers performed some kind of cleverwork with thick, fuzzy threat and flexible needles.  This was one of the women he had first seen handing out coveralls and food boxes.  Traces of a glower had passed across Putin's face as his wife spoke his given name.  Zakh surmised he was embarrassed by it, and that one in so lowly a position as himself would be ill-advised to repeat it in the hearing of the crew.  Putin bent to kiss his wife upon the cheek and went straight to a huge crock covered with a damp cloth.  Lifting this aside, he peered into the container, sniffed its contents, nodded to himself, and re-covered it.

"Ask him yourself.  I'll freshen up a bit.  Where's Alice off to?"

Her ample form filling up the door, Putin's other wife entered from another room.  "Here, husband.  What's this you've dragged in off the deck?"

Greeting his second wife as he had greeted the first, Putin grinned down at the boy.  "It followed me home.  I assume I can keep it, no?"

"I don't know, Dracul," answered Alice, "is it housebroken?" In her corner by the oven, Alice Putin emitted a pleasant chuckle, lifted a thick strand of her cleverwork over another, and did something to it with a needle.

"Good question, Alice, my beloved.  One more I think we'll find an answer to this afternoon." Both wives nodded.  Alice put water to boil for tea, Anna continued working.  Wondering what the man had meant, Zakh washed his hands at the tap he was shown, sat where he was told in a handmade chair, and stared at a platter of biscuits, cookies, tarts, and other sweets the likes of which he had never seen, not even at the Holdings.

The boy was aware he had not known what to expect concerning the first officer's private arrangements.  For that matter, being invited to see firsthand had been the least of his expectations.  Maybe he had awaited variations upon the dismal, dangerous surroundings he himself occupied, earlier upon the gundeck and now, a level higher, upon the boatdeck where, since his promotion, he slept in a hammock used by two other boys during watches when he was busy elsewhere.  Maybe, knowing Putin's avocation, he had expected everything to smell of rancid lard, covered under a dusting of stale flour.  In any event, the bright, spotless home Putin's wives made for him, with its gingerbread furniture, its sparkling, multi-paned windows overlooking the maindeck, and its books----the Putins had real books, like the one Terrible Yvan had given him!----now seemed much to Zakh like the storyfile den of giant, cheerful animals. At once he was upon his guard.

"....maybe," Putin was saying, "after our youthful friend has delivered himself of the question or twenty that I brought him to ask and have privately answered."  Like an absurd insect buzzing from blossom to blossom, Putin h ad been flitting about, if that was an appropriate word, inspecting first an oven, next a crock, checking bins and boxes, sniffing, tasting, adjusting.  Now he stopped.  Zakh looked right up into the big giant's face.

"Sir, I would like to know why you chose to make me a ship's boy."

Sounding like his shorter wife, Putin chuckled.  If his peasant accent seemed to fade a trifle, betraying a searching and powerful, if self-educated, intelligence, neither he nor the boy seemed to notice.  "Learned that much, have you, that in some languages the word 'gift' means 'poison'?  And always count your rubles?  Loss of innocence:  a pity I suppose, but the better part of growing up.  It's this simple, Zakh Sorokin.  I've watched you, as I watch everything and everybody aboard this adventurer.  It is my job.  And, by default, the job is mine, as well---for the captain, as owner-in-command, has other matters to occupy his attention----of finding her new officers."  Putin sat at the table, his chair groaning beneath his weight.  "You meet certain standards, child.   My standards, which each of your new messmates likewise met.  You're agile, fast-witted, a survivor---though you'll have to learn a more versatile form of hand-to-hand combat.  Do not depend upon trickery that works once, leaving the user helpless against an informed enemy."

Zakh nodded, wishing to understand.   Over what now seemed like a lifetime, despite the improved circumstances in which he now found himself, he had seen shocking brutality.  He had witnessed theft and extortion as everyday fact among crewbeings less able than he, or for some reason unwilling, to protect themselves.  He had seen torture disguised as discipline.  He had witness more than one brutal murder.  Rape he knew upon an intimate basis.  These were violent times, Maria had told him, life being held cheap even by those living it.

"Also, however well-deserved their terrible comeuppances, you've cost me a crewbeing who'll be missed, and an officer----don't deny it! ---than whom I've had a number worse.  I'm curious to see if you can fill both shoes."

Again, Zakh only nodded, his ruminations elsewhere than upon the man's words or maybe extracting different meaning from them than was intended.  The rest of the visit was spent eating, and afterward exploring the facilities which had produced what they had consumed.  With proprietary pride, Putin had shown off his ovens and explained the steps involved in baking.  Despite circumstances calculated to produce self-consciousness, Zakh had taken in everything.  If not fascinated, his questions were at least intelligent.

Now, Putin shook his shaggy head as he watched the thin, tense, figure of the boy receding across the maindeck.  He had been unsure whether to tell him he met the standards mentioned earlier better than any he had seen during his long, colorful career.  In the end, he had decided not to, for the present.  The decision had been emotional.  Decades aboard all kinds of starships, in every position---he, too, having started as a virtual slave---had taught the man to trust his feelings, doubts in particular.  Potential greatness loomed about this child, he thought, but something else, too.

As an apparent result of the boy's example, several rapists---not men alone---had died or were so injured at the hands of their intended victims that rape was becoming a rarity aboard Zilvagabond.  Food-theft---interfered with only when it threatened, through starvation, to deprive the starship of able crewbeings---had become a thing of the past.

In Putin's experience, as a voyage progressed, and with each shower interval, the pressure seemed to fall.  Intended for issue to all crewbeings, for purposes of washing and drinking, water was withheld and sold to them.  Since they possessed little to no money, the accepted currency was sexual, pain endured for the pain of sadists, or (most valuable of all), tales identifying individuals likely to resist authority.  Now the body of the noncommissioned officer who sold the crewbeings' own water to them had been found, facedown, in a shallow pan, drowned in no more than two lines, and the first officer was having trouble keeping it quiet.

Sickness and injury, always a problem upon voyages, were falling off, efficiency increasing.  More time for music and dancing upon the maindeck had been found.  Without prompting from officers who never cared to exert themselves, while it was never altogether pleasant belowdecks, it was becoming cleaner.  Crewbeings took more pride in personal appearance.

Zakh might be more than just an officer, someday.  He might be a mighty captain Putin himself would be proud to serve.  Or he might fail, winding up a cruel negligent or a red-handed murderer like---the big man throttled the dishonorable thought.  Time would tell, which was why Putin had withheld something that belonged to the boy by rights, taken from him by force, and which, in truth, the big man had intended acknowledging---by regulation, it could not yet be returned---during this visit.  He went to a bureau beneath one window and opened a drawer. He did not remove the chemenergic pistol lying there, nor touch it, but looked down at it for a long while, thinking.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0muMMLaHfA
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For his own part, Zakh wasn't sure whether to feel relief.  Putin had accepted the killing of Rodya as motivated by cause and arrived at in justice.  The kindly giant had even expressed a willingness to take the 3rd officer's death upon much the same terms. But would he accept what had yet to be found with a similar equanimity?  In his 1st hour aboard Zilvagabond, Zakh had suffered the cruelty of three men, not the two whose executions Putin had forgiven.  Somehow, the resolution Zakh had just the previous watch contrived seemed fitting.  Since the second officer had been occupied inspecting every line of the liftcable, a painstaking task he would entrust to no one, this was the first watch Mr. von Baumbach---"Voya"---would be missed.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvRd6cLnwup
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Pity, the way the man had struck his head, becoming entangled in a length of rejected cable.   Too bad his screams were stifled by a clump of some squirming gray-green substance that had fallen into his open mouth, nostrils, and eyes.  Zakh only hoped that Voya and the gnutmold had enjoyed their final meal half as much as he had enjoyed serving it.8964 copyright protection195ＰＥＮＡＮＡFJCUUXpipX 維尼