butter-substitute that soaked into the hot "bread" with a genuinely dairy smell. "Splendid, Bailey," I said.

"We are not amused," said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second helping of the pseudo-turkey. "You are improving, Belly-Robber, but only arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to require a geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mere edibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you will have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics student. That will be all, Bailey."

The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding of Bailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between their Captain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embark on an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their last few days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and many memories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men had lost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed, seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside, and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to our Captain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advice that would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, when Winkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook.

Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effects besides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. As his rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double this ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of books, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to help him while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for a fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of spices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice, and a dozen others.

Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cards interested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability alien to his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'd exercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowance to the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram. To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to come aboard their ship mother-naked.

But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effects baggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noon mess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his 

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