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"He knows it would make poor old Rugel feel as if he wasn't good for much to order him into his bunk and make him take dope like a Mentorian for every warp-shift. So we have this to go through at every jump!" He sounded cross and disgusted, but there was a rough, boyish gentleness as he hauled the blanket over the bald old Lhari. He looked up, almost shyly. "Thanks for helping me with Old Baldy.
"Time," he said briefly to Vorongil, "Fifteen seconds...." Rugel looked across from his couch. Bart felt that the old, scarred Lhari could read his fear. Rugel said through a wheeze, "No matter how old you get, Bartol, you're still scared when you make a warp-shift. But relax, computers don't make mistakes." "Catalyst," Vorongil snapped, "Ready shift!"
Cargo amassed in the holds of the Swiftwing, from worlds beyond all dreams of strangeness. Bart grew, not bored, but hardened to the incredible. For days at a time, no word of human speech crossed his mind. The blackout at peak of each warp-shift persisted. Vorongil had given him permission to report off duty, but since the blackouts did not impair his efficiency, Bart had refused.
This would be his only voyage; after this he'd be chained again, crawling from planet to planet of a single sun. And as warp-shift followed warp-shift, the Swiftwing retracing the path of her outward cruise star by star, Bart said farewell to them. One day, at last, he stood at the viewport, watching Procyon Alpha nearing.
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