knows we try to vary it as much as we can. Space creates rough edges. But the point is, we know all this, and knowing it, we shouldn't let it happen. We've got to find that thief."

"What would he want seeds for? Have you thought of that?"

"Of course. They'd have real value on Antheon."

Ellason sought out Carver Janssen. He was a middle-aged man with a tired face and sad eyes. He said, "Now what am I going to Antheon for? I could only take along so much baggage and I threw out some comfort items to make room for the seeds. I'm a horticulturist, and Interstellar asked me to go along. But what use am I now? Where am I going to get seeds like those? Do you know how long it took me to collect them? They're not ordinary seeds, Mr. Ellason."

There was an appeal from Janssen in the next day's newsletter describing the seeds, telling of their value, and requesting their return in the interests of the Antheon colony and of humanity.

On the thirty-fourth day a witness turned up who said he had seen a man emerging from Janssen's compartment with the black case. "I didn't think anything of it at the time," Jamieson Dievers said.

Branson asked him to describe the man.

"Oh, he was about six feet tall, stocky build, and he wore a red rubber mask that covered his head completely."

"Didn't you think that was important?" Branson asked in an outraged voice. "A man wearing a red mask?"

Dievers shrugged. "This is a spaceship. How would I know whether a red mask—or a blue or green one—does or doesn't belong on a spaceship?"

Although Dievers' account appeared in the newsletter, it was largely discounted.

"If it is true," Branson told Ellason, "the theft must be the work of a psychotic. But I don't believe Jamieson Dievers. It may well be he's the psychotic." He snorted. "Red rubber mask! I think I'll have Dievers put through psychiatry."

Attendant to taking notes on this incident, Ellason noted a strange thing. Janssen lived in that part of the ship known as the First Quadrant, and those who lived in that quadrant—more than seven hundred men, women and children—felt that the thief must surely live in Quadrant Two or Four. Elias Cromley, who had the compartment next to Janssen's, sounded the consensus when he said, "Surely a man wouldn't steal 

 Prev. P 5/12 next