Joel scrambled to his feet. He felt light, giddy. Nick Thorp took a
look at his alarmed countenance and burst into laughter.
"You'll get your space legs quick enough," he assured Joel. "The
gravity aboard ship is only about a third of Earth's pull. You'll enjoy
it when you get used to it."
Joel had his doubts about that, but when he glanced at the antics of
the others he couldn't resist a grin.
A tall red-haired girl kept bounding into the air at each step. Then
she flipped all the way over and lit on her bottom.
Just then a whistle blew. Joel wheeled around to find Mister Mullin,
the third mate, standing in the door to the mess-room.
"Line up at your bunks," the third ordered. "This is a Star Ship and
no stinking freighter. You'll be expected to keep your quarters clean.
Inspection every day!"
"Day?" someone asked.
"We're on Earth time. Lights out at twenty-two hours and on again at
six. Meals at eight, twelve and eighteen hours."
With the same dispatch he divided the prisoners into squads of four
and assigned each their job.
Joel was relieved to find that he and Nick Thorp were in the same group
along with Tamis Ravitz, the dancer, and another man whom Joel didn't
know. Their job, it developed, was to keep the mess-room in order.
Mister Mullin glanced at his watch, said, "It's eighteen hours now. You
can go in to dinner," and trotted out.
Joel realized that he hadn't eaten in hours. He was famished. He
hastened into the mess-room and sat down at a table along with Nick
Thorp and Tamis Ravitz.
The tables, which seated four, were built against the bulkheads down
each side of the mess-room. Joel was pressing the button for his meal
when a tall handsome man with a black goatee approached them.
"I'm Gustav Liedl," he introduced himself in a cultured voice. "I've
been assigned to your squad. I thought it an excellent opportunity to
become better acquainted."
"Sit down," Nick Thorp invited, introducing the others.
Joel's dinner arrived just then via a slot in the bulkhead and he
addressed himself to it silently. Gustav Liedl, though, dawdled over
his meal, talking with Tamis.
"Yes," Joel heard Liedl say in reply to one of Tamis' questions. "I was
a professor." He made a rueful face, tugging at his black goatee. "At
the Sorbonne. Anthropology was my subject."
"Anthropology!" Joel interrupted. "Then you must have some ideas about
the natives of Asgard. What they are? Why no one has ever seen them?"
Liedl regarded Joel with a smile. "Ah, the elusive Centaurians! Yes.
I've a theory about the Asgardian natives. I spent several years,
you know, studying their villages with the Sorbonne's Asgardian
Institute...."
Joel, glancing at Tamis, surprised a startled, half-frightened
expression on her smooth ivory countenance.
"I've a theory," Liedl repeated, "that the Centaurians are masters of
camouflage. I doubt very seriously that they are human. They may even
be a quasi-intelligent species of plant life. Have you ever seen the
Asgardian jungles, young man?"
"No," Joel admitted.
"Horrible!" Liedl said. "Plants with snaky tendrils like jointless
arms. And they aren't rooted. They're capable of independent motion.
It's amazing the number of Asgardian species that can move around
freely as mammals."
Tamis said gaily, "Then you think the anthropologists have been looking
for a man-like animal when all the time the natives have been plants
who crept off into the jungle and hid?"
"Exactly!"
"Sounds like a reasonable explanation," Thorp admitted. "I've seen
those Asgardian jungles. Crawling, thrashing masses of vegetation." He
shook his head. "It gives a body the creeps."
"But how can anything live in that jungle?" Joel protested.