I asked as the petty officer left the mess room. “Nothing,” said the second officer. “Nothing at all.” “What do you carry him for, then?” The second was a man in his middle forties with a very nice grin. He used it now. “We carry him just in case,” he said. “He’s the chemical supervisor. He stands no watches, makes no reports. He reports aboard before we take off and disappears when we make port. For that he knocks down six hundred and forty credits a month.” “Six—Holy Kit, that’s a lot of change for doing nothing. I was always under the impression that the crew of a spaceship was streamlined down to practically nothing. Does every ship carry these … these paid passengers?” The second nodded as he filled my glass again. “There was a time, four or five hundred years ago, when a ship couldn’t have done without them. They had no automatic machinery to speak of then. The ships were self-powered, and half their capacity was given over to fuel. Half the rest was driving machinery.
