The Stoker and the Stars | Page 5

* * * * *
Mac and I and some of the other crewmen went down on the field to
handle the unloading. Jeks on self-propelled cargo lifts jockeyed among
us, scooping up the loads as we unhooked the slings, bringing cases of
machinery from their own ship. They sat atop their vehicles, lean and
aloof, dashing in, whirling, shooting across the field to their ship and
back like wild horsemen on the plains of Earth, paying us no notice.
We were almost through when Mac suddenly grabbed my arm. "Look!"
The stoker was coming down on one of the cargo slings. He stood
upright, his booted feet planted wide, one arm curled up over his head
and around the hoist cable. He was in his dusty brown Marine uniform,
the scarlet collar tabs bright as blood at his throat, his major's insignia
glittering at his shoulders, the battle stripes on his sleeves.
The Jeks stopped their lifts. They knew that uniform. They sat up in
their saddles and watched him come down. When the sling touched the
ground, he jumped off quietly and walked toward the nearest Jek. They
all followed him with their eyes.
"We've got to stop him," Mac said, and both of us started toward him.
His hands were both in plain sight, one holding his duffelbag, which
was swelled out with the bulk of his airsuit. He wasn't carrying a
weapon of any kind. He was walking casually, taking his time.
Mac and I had almost reached him when a Jek with insignia on his
coveralls suddenly jumped down from his lift and came forward to
meet him. It was an odd thing to see--the stoker, and the Jek, who did
not stand as tall. MacReidie and I stepped back.
The Jek was coal black, his scales glittering in the cold sunlight, his
hatchet-face inscrutable. He stopped when the stoker was a few paces
away. The stoker stopped, too. All the Jeks were watching him and
paying no attention to anything else. The field might as well have been

empty except for those two.
"They'll kill him. They'll kill him right now," MacReidie whispered.
They ought to have. If I'd been a Jek, I would have thought that
uniform was a death warrant. But the Jek spoke to him:
"Are you entitled to wear that?"
"I was at this planet in '39. I was closer to your home world the year
before that," the stoker said. "I was captain of a destroyer. If I'd had a
cruiser's range, I would have reached it." He looked at the Jek. "Where
were you?"
"I was here when you were."
"I want to speak to your ship's captain."
"All right. I'll drive you over."
The stoker nodded, and they walked over to his vehicle together. They
drove away, toward the Jek ship.
"All right, let's get back to work," another Jek said to MacReidie and
myself, and we went back to unloading cargo.
* * * * *
The stoker came back to our ship that night, without his duffelbag. He
found me and said:
"I'm signing off the ship. Going with the Jeks."
MacReidie was with me. He said loudly: "What do you mean, you're
going with the Jeks?"
"I signed on their ship," the stoker said. "Stoking. They've got a
micro-nuclear drive. It's been a while since I worked with one, but I
think I'll make out all right, even with the screwball way they've got it

set up."
"Huh?"
The stoker shrugged. "Ships are ships, and physics is physics, no matter
where you go. I'll make out."
"What kind of a deal did you make with them? What do you think
you're up to?"
The stoker shook his head. "No deal. I signed on as a crewman. I'll do a
crewman's work for a crewman's wages. I thought I'd wander around a
while. It ought to be interesting," he said.
"On a Jek ship."
"Anybody's ship. When I get to their home world, I'll probably ship out
with some people from farther on. Why not? It's honest work."
MacReidie had no answer to that.
"But--" I said.
"What?" He looked at me as if he couldn't understand what might be
bothering me, but I think perhaps he could.
"Nothing," I said, and that was that, except MacReidie was always a
sourer man from that time up to as long as I knew him afterwards. We
took off in the morning. The stoker had already left on the Jek ship, and
it turned out he'd trained an apprentice boy to take his place.
* * * * *
It was strange how things became different for us, little by little after
that. It was never anything you could put your finger on, but the Jeks
began taking more