“Mr. Cain?” she repeated, staring at Cain. “Are you the one they call the Songbird?”

Cain nodded. “It’s not my favorite name.”

“I’ve heard about you all over the Frontier,” she continued enthusiastically. “Black Orpheus gave you three verses!” She paused, embarrassed. “I’m sorry about not knowing who you were last night.”

“There’s no reason why you should have known me,” replied Cain.

“But you’re so famous!”

“No more so than you and Father William,” said Cain. “We’re all in the damned song.”

She looked concerned. “Don’t you like Orpheus’ song?”

“Not especially,” he said. Moonripple looked like she was about to cry, and he quickly added: “But the verse he did about you was lovely.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked, smiling again.

He nodded. “Have you ever found those pearls that he claims you were looking for?”

“I wasn’t really hunting for pearls,” she replied. “That was just a thing to say.”

“What were you looking for on all those worlds?” asked Cain.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we were both looking for the same thing,” he suggested.

“Maybe,” she agreed. “What are you looking for?”

“Santiago.”

“I’ve never met him, sir.”

“Do you know anyone who has?”

“I really couldn’t say, sir,” she replied. “I mean, if you had met Santiago, you’d hardly be likely to tell someone like me, would you?”

“Would you like to meet him?”

“A great hero like that?” she said. “He wouldn’t have time for someone like me, sir.”

“Moonripple, my child,” said Father William, who had been eating with feverish haste during their conversation, “I think I’m ready for another pitcher of beer.”

“Right away, sir,” she said, walking behind the bar and holding a fresh pitcher under the tap.

“You’d better dig in, Sebastian,” said Father William, “or there won’t be anything left for you.”

“You go ahead,” said Cain. “I’m really not very hungry.”

“You weren’t hungry last night, either,” remarked the preacher. “No wonder you’re so gaunt. Don’t you ever eat?”

“Aboard my ship,” answered Cain.

“You couldn’t get me into that unholy melding of man and machine,” said Father William devoutly. “I’m surprised God allowed it to happen.”

“If God didn’t want Men to become spaceships, He wouldn’t have created the Graal,” said Cain with a smile.

Father William looked up sternly from his food. “Sebastian, you can ask all the questions you want about Santiago—but when you make fun of the Lord, you’re walking on very thin ice. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“I apologize if I’ve offended you,” said Cain.

“It’s not me you have to worry about offending,” said the preacher. “It’s the Lord.”

“Then I apologize to both of you.”