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Within a few days, with so much going on co
Meanwhile there’d been many developments, mostly of a favorable nature. Work on the Venture proceeded apace. The captain couldn’t have complained about lack of interest on the side of his shipbuilders. After the first few days either Bazim or Filish seemed always around, supervising every detail of every operation. They were earnest, hardworking, middle-aged men — Bazim big, beefy, and sweaty, Filish lean, weathered, and dehydrated-looking — who appeared to know everything worth knowing about the construction and outfitting of spaceships. Su
His own feelings about Su
That had suddenly changed, at least as far as the captain was concerned. From one day to another, Su
It was flattering at first. Su
But there still was something wrong about it. He wasn’t sure what except perhaps that when Goth came around he had the impression that Su
It got to be embarrassing finally, and he found himself increasingly inclined to avoid Su
Vezzarn was a couple of decades beyond middle age but a spry and wiry little character, whose small gray eyes didn’t seem to miss much. He was cheery and polite, very good with figures. Above all, he’d logged six passes through the Chaladoor and didn’t mind making a few more — for the customary steep risk pay and with, as he put it, the right ship and the right skipper. The Evening Bird, building in the shipyard, plus Captain Aron of Mulm seemed to meet his requirements there.
The day the captain recalled the odd dream he’d had during their first night in Zergandol, a man named Tobul had dropped by at the office to talk to Vezzarn. They were distant relatives, and Tobul was a traveling salesman whose routes took him over most of Uldune. He’d been a spacer like Vezzarn in his younger days; and like most spacers, the two used Imperial Universum in preference to Uldunese when they talked together. So the captain kept catching scraps of the conversation in Vezzarn’s cubicle.
He paid no attention to it until he heard Tobul inquire, “Safe to mention Worm Weather around here at the moment?”
Wondering what the fellow meant, the captain looked up from his paper work.
“Safe enough,” replied Vezzarn. “Hasn’t been a touch of it for a month now. You been ru
“More’n I like, let me tell you! There was a bad bout of it in…” He gave the name of some Uldune locality which the captain didn’t quite get. “Just before I got there. Very bad! Everywhere you went people were still going off into screaming fits. Didn’t hang around there long, believe me!”
“Don’t blame you.”
“That evening after I left, I saw the sky starting to go yellow again behind me. I made tracks… They could’ve got hit as bad again that night. Or worse! Course you never hear anything about it.”
“No.” There was a pause while the captain listened, straining his ears now. The sky going yellow? Suddenly and vividly he saw every detail of that ominous fiery dream-structure again, drifting towards him, and the yellow discoloration fading against the stars above Zergandol… “Seems like it keeps moving farther west and south,” Vezzarn went on thoughtfully. “Ten years ago nobody figured it ever would get to Uldune.”
“Well, it’s been all around the planet this time!” Tobul assured him. “Longest bout we ever had. And if—”
The captain lost the rest of it. He’d glanced out the window just then and spotted Su
Today she was clearly on her way to see him. The captain picked up his cap, stopped for an instant at Vezzarn’s cubicle.
“I’ve been gone for a couple of hours,” he a
“Right, sir!” said Vezzarn understandingly. “The chances are you’re at the bank this very moment…”
“Probably,” the captain agreed, and left. Once outside, he recalled several matters he might as well be taking care of that afternoon; so it was, in fact, getting close to evening before he returned to the office. Tobul had left and Su
The captain told him to go on, and sat down. When Vezzarn reached the end of his yarn, he asked, “By the way, just what is that Worm Weather business you and Tobul were talking about today?”